For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water. Jeremiah 2:13
My dog, Bailey, just reminded me of an important gospel lesson. As I was checking email from my bedroom, I heard the lapping sound of Bailey as he was drinking from the toilet. That is not his usual watering hole, though I confess we have forgotten to fill up his water bowl from time to time. Aside from the fact that drinking water from the toilet is yucco, it’s also a shame that my dog had to resort to drinking toilet water to slake his thirst instead of drinking faucet water from his water bowl. That got me thinking about my own heart and the heart of all mankind. We often seek to slake our thirst, spiritually speaking, by drinking “toilet water.” What is our “toilet water”? It’s anything that we look to as our source of ultimate meaning and satisfaction that is not God. In a nutshell, it is seeking our happiness outside of God. A lot of the things we purse are good in and of themselves, but when we make them ultimate (“If I can just have a wife, a six-figure income, or get my kids into the best school, then my life will be complete), we dilute the purity and function of those things because we look to them for a salvation that they cannot produce. The result is that we subject ourselves to spiritual dehydration. Let us, therefore, drink from the fountain of living water that is God.
But there is one other issue that is equally important for those of us who know the source of true living water. We are to help people see that God is the true source, the true fountainhead. How “cruel” would it have been for me to have let Bailey continue to let him drink from the toilet, knowing there was better water for him to drink. I needed to show him/take him to where there was better water. We are called to do the same thing for those we are in relationship with. We want to gently and winsomely expose the futility of drinking “toilet water” and point them to the living water of Christ. Part of that means that we share how we have and even continue to drink toilet water ourselves, but also how the gospel is changing our desires, redirecting our thirst to be satisfied in God. I think this is a resolution we can all embrace for the new year.
Posted via email from BRETT EUBANK
brett eubank | unfinished 
Wow! What a powerful picture from the most unlikely source. Thanks to our Heavenly Father for your spiritual sensitivity that allowed you to see it. Love you. Dad.
Thanks Dad. I guess if a donkey could speak to Balaam, then Bailey could “speak” to me. Love you.
WOW!!! That was powerful stuff. Glad I happened along here this morning. Thanks for the kick start to the week.
Bryan
God continues to speak to you. I am thankful that your ears are waiting to hear and that your heart is wanting to share with others. Mom