Are Your Cisterns full?

Last night we had a terrific storm! I mean, the big kind where your kids end up sleeping in your bed all night! It was magnificent. As the storm raged I thought what the people of Jerusalem must have been thinking on a night like that. 

The thunder...wow. When it sounded, you thought an earthquake had hit! The sound resonated through the city, bouncing off the hard surfaces of the buildings. You felt like it was imminating from all sides! 

The rain...heavy. Not showers and a little heavy, but strong, yard flooding, pools overflowing type of rain. The rivers will be swollen this morning, and the cisterns will be full!

As I prayed and considered all of this, it was when I got to that last thought that The Lord choose to speak! the cisterns would be full! You see we have seen a lot of cisterns! They are all over the city. I only took a picture of one the first day (if you've seen one, you've seen them all), and we must have seen 7 more since.

They were made to collect and store the rain water. Jerusalem is up on a hill, so water is a premium. When it rains, either through pipes or carvings in the stone, water came into the cisterns and began to fill them. Last night, I thought, this rain would have filled these dry cisterns all the way to the top! What a blessing for the people this would have been. The sound of thunder would have been The Lord's wake up call! "A wake, O sleeper" He let us all know that He was lavishing His grace upon us. You couldn't miss the thunder, but you do get to choose your response! It must either be worship and gracefulness, or annoyed and bothered. You couldn't sleep, you were going to wake up tired (I did). How do you respond when The Lord announces Himself in such a way.

What was He announcing, "Those dry cisterns are full!" "You who thirst, will be thirsty no longer!" There must have been rejoicing in all of Jerusalem to hear that sound! 

You know, as a Christian, The Lord speaks to us too! He fills our cisterns to overflowing and gives us water so that we will never thirst again...or at least we don't have too. I think sometimes we choose to be bothered that The Lord isn't more convenient when He chooses to speak to us. Too loud, too powerful, interrupting "our rest/plans." We think of all the work that His showers will cause for us, never taking time to check the cisterns.   

Let us not be such silly Christians. Begging The Lord to move and then completely missing it when He does. Yes the thunder is Loud and the rains are strong...but how else will The Lord fill our dry cisterns so quickly? So Lord, today....fill my cistern, so I may delight and rejoice over Your mercy and love for me.