About a year ago, my son’s little world suddenly opened to intoxicating majesty. My husband’s company met an important milestone, and management rewarded everyone by paying for a trip for all the employees and their families to Cedar Point, a semi-local, giant amusement park, for hours and hours of family fun. And fun it was, so much so that my son became obsessed. Nearly every day for the following year he asked if we could go back. When we climbed into the van to go home from a rock climbing vacation, a little voice in the back called out, “I wanna go to Cedar Point!” Whenever I tried to convey some deep, spiritual truth, my son would listen intently, and then ask, “Can I go to Cedar Point?” It was clear that Cedar Point, in all its kiddie ride glory, had become an idol in his two-year-old heart.

A couple weeks ago, on our way home from a family reunion, we went back. It was a thrilling day: the “frog hopper” ride, bumper boats, cars, trucks, the “frog hopper” again, helicopters, an elephant ear, the “frog hopper” again, a guy in a Snoopy Suit, a mini roller coaster, a bouncy Snoopy, seventeen more rides on the “frog hopper.” My little guy missed his nap, walked several miles, grinned, and laughed, and wore himself out. And by the end, he was crying, “I want to go home! I want to go home!”

Surprise, surprise. His fountain of joy was just a broken cistern after all, and he had drunk it dry.

Jeremiah 12:11-13 Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? but my people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit. Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the LORD. For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.

This may seem like a harsh indictment of a two-year-old. After all, isn’t it normal to be really excited about an amusement park and equally normal to get worn out by the end of the day? Yup, it’s normal, so normal, in fact that it’s classically human. Don’t all of us have Cedar Points, places where we think life will be perfectly fulfilling? For some of us, our Cedar Point is marriage, for some it’s education, or a certain kind of job. My Cedar Point is on the corner of Duggar Avenue and Waller Way, in the heart of Amish country. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. It has all the hottest rides for the feminine fundamentalist. There’s the “Run Your Own Small Farm” roller coaster, the “Make Your Own Nearly Everything” carousel, and the “Husband Works from Home” locomotive, which pulls the “Family Train” around the park. Every day is “Homeschool Day,” and let’s not forget that if you buy a family pass, you’ll receive a new baby every eighteen months. Glorious! A fountain of joy.

Or maybe another broken cistern?

There’s nothing wrong with any of these things, just like there’s nothing inherently wrong with having a family trip somewhere fun. The problem comes when we get obsessed, when we think that if our lives were just this certain way, then we would be happy, when in fact we have “all things that pertain unto life and godliness” right now (1Peter 1:3). It would be great to live on a small farm, but if I fail to “rejoice evermore” (1 Thessalonians 5:16) in town, chances are I’d still be unjoyful, even in the heart of Amish country, because I already have the One Thing, the Only Thing that will ever truly satisfy. And if I forsake Him to drink from any other source, in the end, I’ll still be thirsty. I’ll still get tired of life. I’ll still cry that I want to go home.

Seeking a lifestyle that will help us better serve the Lord is good, but we can’t do it because we think it’s going to make us happy. We have to do it because we are first of all seeking HIM. Only He can make us happy. Only He can make us fulfilled. Only He can quench our thirst. And only He can never be drunk dry. Like Jesus told the woman at the well:

John 4:13-14 Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.

Everything else is a broken cistern. We can drink it dry, or we can watch the tepid water slowly leak out until our cistern’s dry, but either way it’s going to wind up dry. And we’ll still be thirsty.

That day at Cedar Point, I stood my son on a bench, and tried to explain this to him. I told him how at home he always wanted to go to Cedar Point, and now that he was here, he was tired. I told him how everything eventually stops being so interesting and gets boring in the end, everything but God. I told him that God was the Only One who would ever satisfy him. He listened. I’m sure it will be years before he truly understands, but at least he heard about the water at a time when he was thirsty. And maybe someday he’ll realize that most of all, he wants to go to God and not just Cedar Point.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 6th, 2008 at 8:58 pm and is filed under Christian Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.