All By Myself…

I like to think I can pretty much do anything I try, by myself.  I don’t need help to open jars or get on ladders.  I can do it myself.  I like to think that I am helpful to others, but that I don’t need help.  I like to think I have it all together.  Look at me, Angela.  Blog writer, book writer, speaker, mom, Bible Scholar (well, sort of in the I am teaching myself and listening to God way).  The thing is that anything I do of myself is broken.  Anything I try to do outside of God is doomed to failure.  No Biblical knowledge or clever analogy is going to amount to a hill of beans. unless God is in it; unless God is the source of it.

Often I am satisfied with just me.  My version or attempt at doing something for God by myself, without help, from anyone, even God Himself.  As if I don’t know there is anything better than mud pies, when God has a wonder feast awaiting me.  Sometimes I even come to a passage and think I have this one.  I know what it means and I put on MY glasses and see it only from MY view.  When that happens I find a distorted version of God’s truth.  I find things the way I like them in neat little boxes, but again, it is like playing in the mud when there is a beautiful sandy beach.  I just miss out.

It reminds me of what God says in Jeremiah 2:13.  “‘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.'”  We have access to a spring of living water.  It is good to drink from, it is always new and refreshing, it never stops.  It is LIVING WATER!  Instead, I settle for my broken cistern.  I can take pride in the fact that I made it myself, but it holds no water.  There is nothing there to refresh my soul, to quench my thirst, to draw me to God.  It is empty and broken.  However I often bring others and say with pride, “Look at my cistern.  See what I made!”  Oh that those who see my broken cistern would say, “But there is something better, Angela.  Something not made by your hands, but by the hands of your Creator.”  Oh that I would NOT be content with my broken cistern, that I would NOT pretend God needs me to do something for Him.

What is amazing is that through Christ, I have that spring of living water in me through the Holy Spirit.  Father may I do all things through Your spirit and not wallow in my cistern.  Forgive me for trying to do it myself.  Thank You that You do not want me to do it alone, but that You want me to grow more and more dependent on You.  Thank You for being the spring of living water in me!