It has been said that there is a God–shaped vacuum in the heart of every human. God made humans this way to remind us that only He can fill our life with meaning and purpose that ultimately fulfill us. And when we ignore or reject God we end up trying to find this by filling our lives with temporary things and momentary pleasures. These eventually become like our idols, where we end up sacrificing our own integrity, our respect for others and even sacrifice those who are closest to us. In due course we discover, even when our life is full of things, and pleasurable experiences, we feel empty and find no contentment and meaning for our life.

There is an interesting story in the book of Jeremiah, where the prophet Jeremiah is talking to people who had known God, but decided to pursue things, not God, to define their life. He likened these people to being thirsty, those needing water to sustain their life. Jeremiah illustrated two sources available. One was a spring of flowing fresh water that came up from the depth of the earth. They were also described as fountains that provided clean and tasty water and were the most reliable. However the other choice was a man-made cistern or container often made in the crevice of rocks and used to hold rain water. These were unreliable because of cracks the water often leaked out, and if not the water was stagnant and not fresh. The deep spring water represents God and a continual source of satisfaction and the cisterns represent the emptiness of human pursuits and achievements without God.

Jeremiah’s comparison is striking…any group of people or person who forgets or rejects God is like one who would abandon a spring of running (fresh) water for a cistern. For someone to turn from a dependable, pure stream of running water and choose a broken, brackish cistern seems ludicrous…but in comparison so was leaving God out of life in order to fill my life with things. Empty!

My people have committed a double wrong: they have rejected me, the fountain of life-giving water, and they have dug cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns which cannot even hold water.” (Jeremiah 2:13)

Jesus once had a conversation with a woman at a well. She came to draw water to quench her thirst. She also came there with a deep thirst to find love and security in relationships, but most likely had been used and even abuse by men. Jesus knowing this, first asks her for water, and then offers her water, whereby she would not thirst again. As God, Jesus’ offer what only God can provide.

Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. (John 4:13-14)

Are you trying to fill your life with things in order to define and fulfill it? Material things and pleasures are not wrong, for God give us such things to enjoy and the boundaries in which we find this. The problem comes when we leave God out, we become possessed by them they become like a god that we serve and sacrifice for. Fulfillment and enjoyment of life cannot be found in the things themselves, but in the Lord God who made all things, and who alone can provide for us the ability to enjoy them. (1 Timothy 6:17-19)

by Paul Curtas