Broken cisterns

Many years ago, in the town of Largs on the coast of the Firth of Clyde, one of the magnificent mansions that had been built in the late 19th century was converted into a Conference Centre - retaining the name of the original building: Netherhall. It was used by many Christian groups and, even before we were married to one another, my wife and I spent a number of enjoyable weekends there at Missionary Conferences and suchlike events.

Of course, one of the problems about such an old building was that the plumbing was not up to even mid-20th century standards. The noises that came from the pipes, at the most unwelcome times, is something that anyone who stayed in the building will never forget! One old hymn was often referred to - "I tried the broken cisterns, Lord, but ah! the waters failed"!

Cisterns, of course, are not a modern invention. Archaeologists frequently discover cisterns that have been hewn out of solid rock. Can you imagine - swinging a pick-axe, or using a primitive hammer and chisel, digging such a cistern out of hard, unyielding, stone. You work, and work, through the biting cold of winter, and the blazing heat of summer.

After perhaps years of work - if this is to be a domestic cistern - you finally complete the task. You then step back, and wait for the cistern to fill - and it leaks! You discover that, in spite of your hard work, there is a hairline crack in the rock, and your supply of water slowly seeps away.

That is, in fact, a picture of the futility of our attempts to find real satisfaction in life. It's an age-old problem. We read, in the Tanakh (the Hebrew Scriptures; the First/Old Testament) that Almighty God told the prophet Jeremiah that His people "... have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns, that can hold no water." (Jer 2:13). The Children of Israel were doing what, sadly, their descendants appear to be doing today. They were looking for satisfaction - but not looking to YHWH, the God of the Covenant. 

About the same time that many of us were spending time in Netherhall, the musical group "The Rolling Stones", sung a song entitled "I can't get no satisfaction!" Ignoring the poor grammatical structure of those words, they convey the experience of so many, even today.

Are you driven by an inner longing; yearning for satisfaction? There is a spring of living water, rising from hidden depths, that is available to you, and will pour into your heart, satisfying you even as it makes you thirst for more. But you must be willing to stoop down and drink!

Only your Creator can satisfy your heart. Everything else will deceive and disappoint. The apostle John records an incident in the life of the Lord Jesus, when He spoke with a Samaritan woman at a well. He said: "... whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." (John 4:14).

That is a cistern that will never leak; will never fail; and that is available to all who will come to Him, the fountain, or source, of that living water. The hymn-writer, John W. Peterson wrote these words:

"I thirsted in the barren land of sin and shame

And nothing satisfying there I found;

But to the blessed cross of Christ, one day I came,

Where springs of living water did abound."

You,too, may come - and be satisfied.