Cisterns that Leak!

Yesterday my heart stopped. Anna, my six-year-old was riding her bike and was racing the other kids in the neighborhood on their bikes when Anna’s front wheel turned sharply and threw her over the handlebars on to the cement. I saw the whole thing from the porch. She landed on her head and her hip. I ran to her side, thinking the worst and truly afraid for my sweet Anna’s life. After checking her out from head to toe she appeared to be okay, thank the Lord. Now I find myself dwelling on how fearful I am.
Out of my fear I want to tell my daughter that she can never ride her bike again and out of fear I want to do do do and do some more to protect her and my family from any and everything imaginable from hurting us. Is this the right course of action?

Jeremiah 2:13
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.

What does this have to do with fear you ask. When we read this passage we recognize the living waters as God and we read the cisterns as our effort and material things but I think we miss the underlying heart issues. First, let’s look at the cisterns. The building of cisterns was to collect and hold water for the times when the river or creek stopped flowing, the cisterns would still have some water in them hopefully enough to hold them over until the rains came and the rivers and creeks flowed again. Now, look at who is the flowing water in this passage, God. The people made these cisterns out of fear. Fear that God would not deliver the way he said He would. The root of fear is unbelief. I do it, I store up and hoard things instead of giving and not just things and money but more often and more to my shame I don’t give of my time or love. I am a selfish fool. The time and effort I speak of is not the time and effort to feed the needy etc., while those are great things I am talking about the time and effort to love my wife or love my kids. Unbelief is the great thief. Unbelief steals the joys that God has given me. If I really believe in God’s sovereignty then there is freedom from fear and freedom to live like Christ said: “live abundantly”.