The Repair of Leaky Faith

Jeremiah was a young boy when the Lord told him he was going to speak as his mouthpiece to warn Judah about their sins. Judah’s people had, according to the Lord, committed two serious sins. A key passage in Jeremiah lays down the message of the book. First, they had forsaken God, “the fountain of living waters.” Second, they had hewn out for themselves “cisterns - broken cisterns - that cannot hold water.” A fountain of living water is a spring gushing with an ample supply of fresh, clean water. God is a fountain to a dry soul. His Word brings the fresh awakening to us that we don’t need to stay the way we are, but grow. But there are things we can allow in our life that cause our faith to leak out of us. We find ourselves dry and unsatisfied. Trouble overtakes our thought life. We start reaching for creature comforts instead of God’s counsel, like sitting up late into the night staring at mindless TV shows or self-medicating with alcohol or other things, even food; anything that distracts us from the real problem of our needy soul.

What Jeremiah continued to preach to Judah, even as Babylon was defeating them as God said would happen, is that they had a leaky faith and it wasn’t pleasing God.

God sounds really harsh in his warning. He tells Jeremiah to tell his backslidden flock that he will “pluck up, break down, destroy, and overthrow.” If we left it at that, we would overlook the grace that whispers through the correction down through the ages. It’s because, like our own kids, we tend to not differentiate between correction and punishment. Correction, when eaten and digested, becomes the meat talked about in the New Testament although it’s been erroneously taught out of that context.

Think of these four corrective measures like this: a diseased plant in a field will infect the other plants. You’ve probably seen God swiftly move a person out of a local body who is not only self indulgent, but leading others into their easy believism too---not just members, pastors too! Plucking up is God’s way of protecting his harvest. Next, breaking down is what God does inside of us to make us more pliable, as the New Testament says, so that we’ll have a heart of flesh instead of a hard heart. Then, thirdly, there’s the destroy word. Gulp! But it’s not us God desires to destroy, but the sin that causes us to keep taking the same hills. We might have many bases covered in our faith walk, but having one pet sin weakens us to the leaky cistern syndrome. God wants it all destroyed so that we aren’t continually running to him for crisis management. He wants us grown up, reserving our prayers for a needy world (Jer. 2:4, 7:6). Last of all’s the subject of overthrow and that’s the easiest application. Jesus is the only One worthy enough to occupy the throne of our heart and mind. When we allow His gentle kingship to overthrow our selfish ways and desires, we give him permission as an expert Repairman (since he made us) to move in and start rebuilding the leaky spots in our life.

2 Cor. 4: 8,9 says that we are afflicted but not crushed; perplexed but not despairing (giving up); persecuted but not forsaken; we are struck down but not destroyed when we carry inside of us the dying of Jesus. That means that we are emulating him, dying to the demands of our self, the desire for distractions and clutter and collecting and buying and gorging followed by purging that results in perpetual crisis after crisis. If the Body of Christ will simply grab hold of this one basic truth, we’ll have to shut down our counseling centers. Pastors will be overrun with high quality help because they’re not trying to install leaky disciples in places of responsibility. Correction means the correction of our ways and it precedes punishment—allowing it turns God’s heart from punishing us to blessing us and he LOVES doing that! Surrendering to Christ’s gentle correction will then be followed by a fresh fountain of living water that won’t leak out.

A New Way of Giving

As a child taught to be a caretaker, giving came naturally to me. Giving comes naturally to most women. So if we serve a family member who seems to be more needy than others, requiring more time of us than others require, we give because we know how. But learning when to give and assessing how our giving is used is just as artful as not broadcasting ourselves all over every inch of our needy world.

There’s no doubt that most women know how to give. We give to our husbands, our children, our churches, and our jobs. We devote extra time to the promotion of civic and school organizations, helping sell Girl Scout cookies, volunteering at book drives, serving on committees, and helping with the formation of good works. Then we give to needs on the home front, especially when we have a family member who cannot seem to get over the next hill; even worse, he or she keeps taking the same hill over and over.

I’m not talking about family members who have special needs such as my precious nephew born with Downs. I’m talking about aiding a family member who has never grown up and accepted responsibility for his or her own life. For years I was bogged down in trying to help family members who would not help themselves but allowed me to serve them even though my efforts were not appreciated. Nor was I effective. They did not grow or change. Knowing when to hold back and allow a person to drop to the bottom is as important as knowing when to help a person going through a temporary setback.

In sucking relationships, the tendency is to believe that by trying harder we’ll improve the person. We coax, prod, advise, provide emergency funds, weekend getaways, more counsel, midnight vigils and yet, after months drag on, the situation has not improved. Our emotional firefighting has done nothing but leave us exhausted, like a person fighting the California fires alone.

You hear the same tapes being played over and over again. I can’t cope . . . My children are never going to obey me . . . no matter where I work, I always get a bad boss . . . women don’t understand my sensitive nature . . . I’m never going to get out of debt. You find yourself thinking about this person obsessively; their life has seeped in and taken over your’s. If this has happened, let the warning bell sound. You may be on the road to codependency.

But there are steps you can take to back away before your life is smothered by another person’s eternal crisis. This week’s blog theme is all about the fine art of giving relationally. Stay tuned, post your own thoughts, and take a moment to pray and ask God how He wants you to spend your time and your giving. If you have a prayer request, please let it be known and those who visit here can join me in praying for you. If you have a friend whose life is being drained by a relative, a grown child, a spouse, or even a passive-aggressive employer, have them drop by this week for a dialogue on the fine art of healthy caretaking.

Hugs, dear friend.