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In the last devotional, There Is A River, we saw that the human soul is like a bottomless pit – you can pour every treasure, luxury and pleasure into it and still, it will never be satisfied.  Our souls are much like the liquid we drink – a glass of water may fill us for a time, but we will get thirsty again!  It’s a good thing we have a river without end filling us from the deepest crevasse all the way to the tippy-top of our souls!  Yet, knowing that we need spiritual water isn’t enough, we have to know the right place to get it from.

Water in the wrong place…

“For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and have hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.” – Jeremiah 2:13

Two days after Christmas I saw first-hand what it’s like to have an abundance of water in the wrong place…our house flooded.  In the ceiling of our basement, three water pipes broke simultaneously – not only did it transform our basement into a rainforest, it shot up through the floor and flooded the master bath and bedroom on the main floor.  Two large areas of the house had a good amount of water in it on two completely different levels…it was a mess!  I couldn’t help but think, “Where is all this water coming from?  It’s supposed to be in our well!”  The water belonged in the well…not spraying from the ceiling or laying on the hardwood floor.  Through that experience I learned a good lesson – when you put something in the wrong place, it can be destructive.  Especially water!  So, when I read this verse in Jeremiah about Israel trying to keep their own supply of water instead of going to the Lord as their source – it opened up a whole new understanding to me!  The problem wasn’t Israel needing a water supply – the issue lay in where they were getting it from.  The Lord wanted them to get it from Him (the fountain of living waters) but they said, “You know what, I think we can handle this on our own.  We’ll get a cistern and store water in it for safe keeping.”  The real problem was that they replaced God with something they created.  The second verse from There’s Only One Well addresses this too, “There are wells that are made by man, where you fill your cup and you’re thirsty again.”  Wells made by man?  Yep, just like Israel sculpted out cisterns to hold water, we can sometimes dig our own wells to draw satisfaction from life.  Let me show you what I mean…

The wrong wells…

A bad well is anything that takes the place of the Lord in our lives.  If something pushes Him from the #1 spot – it’s a well that’s going to leave us dry.  We’ll go and go and go, even enjoy it for a time, and then suddenly we’ll stop and wonder if what we’re doing is really important after all.  It’s amazing how many of these we can dig up!  Nowadays, just about anything can become a bad well.  Here are some examples…

Jobs
Relationships
Approval from other people
Talent
Success

Even so, these “bad wells” usually aren’t things that are evil, they are necessary things that end up causing us pain when they become misplaced priorities.  The water that flooded our basement wasn’t “bad water” – it was just good water in the wrong place!  At the same time, having a job or a relationship isn’t a bad thing either, but when we become so infatuated with either one that we lose sight of the true purpose of why we’re on this earth (to bring glory to God)…that’s where we get in trouble!  So often those things only keep us happy for a season.  They aren’t bad, they’re actually good things…when we keep them in the right place!

Water in the right place…

“Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them.  Then they cried unto the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses.” – Psalm 107: 5-6     

The thing that Israel didn’t grasp was the need for living waters.  God didn’t want them to have a cistern out in their backyard that held water that would get stagnant, stale and dirty if they didn’t use it quick enough.  No, He wanted to supply them with something fresh and clean every day…something that lived.  You can only accomplish that if you get water fresh from the well every day.  That’s what the Lord wanted them to do…whenever they needed something, He wanted them to come to Him – not depend on something else.  And He wants the same from us.  He doesn’t want us to go to church on Sunday, get filled, go home, use that “spiritual water” from Monday to Wednesday, okay, we ran out, so we go back to church on Wednesday night and get filled again, use that refreshment from Thursday through Saturday…you get the picture!  The Lord doesn’t want an “every once in a while when I need something” relationship.  Yes, He wants you to go to church on Sunday and Wednesday night, but more than that, He wants you to come to His well and get a drink of fresh water every morning.  When a bad storm threatens to hit, we can go to the grocery store and stock up on bottles of water to prepare for the worst.  But we can’t “stock up” on our relationship with the Lord.  It would be silly to say, “Okay God, I’m going to pray for two hours today so I don’t have to talk to You for the rest of the week.”  For some reason, I really don’t think that will work!  We need Him daily.  Life is hard, there’s no other way to put it, and the Lord knows that.  Every time the sun rises in the morning He gives you the opportunity to talk to Him, to tell Him about that co-worker that drives you nuts, the way you worry about your kids (or grandkids) or the heaviness in your heart because you’re not sure how to pay the bill sitting on the counter…  Every morning, He sits a glass of living water out on the table just for you (in the form of His Word) and He waits for you to drink it, cause within it is the strength and encouragement to get you through your day.  In His presence is the only place you will find what you need.  As the song says, “But the living well satisfies evermore…just one drop will do, when it’s from the Lord!”

water

To sum up: There are many places where we can get our water/satisfaction from.  We can get it from the places we go that encourage us (church is a good example).  We can get it from doing things we’re passionate about (work, hobbies, even ministries).  We can get it from the people we’re around or we can get it from Christ.  But there is only one well that will fill us from the deepest crevasse of our soul to the tippy-top, and then over flow some…and that is through daily communication with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Let’s not forget that the things we sometimes substitute for living water are not always evil or bad – sometimes they are good things just put in the wrong places, like the water that flooded our house.  That water is wonderful…when it stays in the well!  But the living water is found in one well, and one well only.  I’m glad the Lord made it that way – a simple solution for the complicated world we live in!  What is that simple solution?  Scott Fowler said it best, “Jesus is right for whatever is wrong in your life.”  So, if we believe that, lets draw from the well and spend some time with such an awesome God!

“It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.”
– Lamentations 3:22-25

Author: lynnschronicles

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