Don't Drink the Water

"Gabriel! Michael! All the rest of you in heaven! Can you believe it? Stop and look down there at Israel. Look at what My people have been doing! Doesn't it make you shudder with terror for them? These people of Mine have committed two great evils. They first show their rebellion by not coming to drink from My pure springs of water. As if that isn't enough, they further insult Me by trying to quench their thirst with the murky runoff water they catch in their makeshift cisterns. What a sad exchange! Israel doesn't have to live that way. They aren't slaves; they aren't captives! They don't have to drink brackish water from such stagnant, leaking basins; I want them to enjoy living water from Me. Yet, sadly, they have brought this on themselves."
God to his heavenly hosts as recorded in Jeremiah 2: 12-13 paraphrased by Jim Berg in his book Changed Into His Image.

I am reading Jim Berg's book right now and this section really sums up our human condition we like to call independence. We snub what God has to offer in order to do it ourselves, to provide for ourselves, even to sustain ourselves. The funny thing is God created us to be dependent on him in a loving relationship. But, He just loves us enough to give us our independence with the desire that we choose to love him back. The sad twist; it is our independence that ends up separating us from Him. We make ourselves captives and slaves to everything we give our hearts away to in order to be satisfied and filled. Our makeshift cisterns and leaking basins consist of anger, depression, sex, drugs, shopping, relationships out side of God, food, materialism; the list goes on. What we don't understand or stop to realize is that our Father, creator is longing for us to come to Him for pure love, living water, and His presence. His desire for us is to have life and have it to the fullest, the purest. We don't need to settle for the murky runoff of this world. That water not only doesn't satisfy but like any murky water it will eventually make us sick. God is looking for those who can be devoted to him. He longs for us to be in a pure loving relationship with him so we can quench ourselves on His living water.

I have never compared what the world has to offer with murky runoff but, looking at it that way makes me think twice about what I quench my thirst with. I want to continue to devote myself to my Father, making the choice to depend on Him for life, for living water.