Trust Issues
by Bernard Kariuki
As a young bride, Israel once loved God and followed Him, but over time, they strayed far from Him and neglected Him. From today’s text, we can see that God is accusing them of two things: abandoning Him, the fountain of living water, and digging for themselves broken cisterns that cannot hold water.
This doesn’t make sense. How could they abandon the perfect source of everything they need, only to build something that is unsustainable, something with cracks? Their rejection of God led them to rely on broken cisterns, trying to sustain themselves without Him.
In Jeremiah Chapter 2, we see a picture of a relationship which was once perfect but has now gone wrong. It’s a portrait of a broken relationship, with God expressing the hurt He feels. It’s the story of a bride who once loved and followed Him, now rejecting and abandoning Him.
This broken relationship was caused by Israel failing to trust in God. Trust is the firm reliance on the truth, ability, or character of someone or something. They didn’t have this firm reliance on God and began to trust in things that were not from God, but from man. We are meant to trust in God and rely on Him, rather than on ‘cisterns.’
A cistern is a container, a reservoir, or a storage tank, and sometimes we put our trust in the things we’ve saved, stored up, or invested in to be our security for tomorrow. But God’s desire is for Him to be our security and provision.
God doesn’t want us to put our trust in the reservoirs we’ve built for tomorrow. He wants to be the source of life we go to.
Though David had war horses, he declared, “Some trust in chariots and others in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God” (Psalm 20:7).
In the book of Proverbs, Solomon writes, ‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding’ (Proverbs 3:5).
Is there an area in our life, or a situation, where we have abandoned God to build our own cisterns? Have we struggled to trust Him in that area or with that situation? May we return to Him, and build a trust relationship with Him. May we surrender everything to Him, allowing Him to be our hope for tomorrow. He longs to be our God.
Bernard Kariuki is from Kenya, and married to Yulia from Russia. They met in Ellel Ministries and served together for many years at both Ellel Scotland and Ellel Grange. Bernard has the desire to share the Word of God with young people, for he desires to see young people walking in holy fear of the Lord.
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