Saint Augustine of Hippo, 354 AD – 430 AD said, “Our hearts are restless, until they rest in You.” We all have a longing for physical as well as spiritual things. That is the inbred natural craving of man. Physically our bodies long for food and water, which can be easily satisfied. While our spiritual longings are much more sublime and cannot be easily satisfied. We try to satisfy our spiritual hunger but we end up dehydrated because we look to sources that were never meant to satisfy our spiritual hunger.
Amos 8:11–13 states,
“The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign Lord, “when I will send a famine through the land—not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord. People will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east, searching for the word of the Lord, but they will not find it. In that day the lovely young women and strong young men will faint because of thirst.”
The prophet Amos predicts that a time would come when people will long to hear the word of the Lord, but it will be withheld from them. Famine and drought of God’s word will prevail. God tells His people there will come a day when they will thirst. They will thirst without being quenched. What are they thirsting for? They are thirsting for God, the Reality of life.
Why would there be this hunger for God? The prophet Jeremiah explains.
In Jeremiah 2:13, we read:
“My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”
The actual Hebrew word isn’t a spring; it’s a source. So we can paraphrase this passage thus:
“My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the source of living water…” (Jeremiah 2:13).
People are thirsting for God. They are thirsting for the living water of God. But instead of going to His well of life, they keep digging broken cisterns seeking satisfaction from soiled substitutes. We keep trying to quench that deep-soul longing only God can quench. And I believe this misplaced seeking and pursuit after vanity has led to an absolute famine of the Word of God.
What are some broken cisterns that people are turning to in our world today? What does the Bible tell us that broken cisterns cannot do?
People are turning to the broken cisterns of false religion, humanism, entertainment, sports, alcohol, drugs, the pursuit of money, sexual pleasure, women, etc. to seek satisfaction. But the more they turn to these things the more they feel dehydrated and unsatisfied. It is like they are chasing after shadows and illusions.
Only the Holy Spirit can fill the void in the human heart. Like St. Augustine of Hippo said, “Our hearts are restless, until they rest in You.” My prayer dear reader is that your soul will find true rest in Jesus Christ.
Jesus invites all who genuinely thirst after him to come to him and drink, “On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water” (John 7:37-38 – NKJV).
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