Broken Cisterns and the Call to Return to Love
“For My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn for themselves cisterns—broken cisterns that can not hold water.”
— Jeremiah 2:13
We are living in a time when our institutions—the very structures we depend on for justice, care, education, health, and hope—are failing us. The church system, meant to be a beacon of love and sanctuary, has often become entangled in power and politics. The health care system, designed to heal, frequently prioritizes profit over people. The prison system punishes rather than restores. The political system sows division instead of seeking the common good. The educational system often stifles creativity and leaves many behind. The immigration system dehumanizes those seeking refuge.
It’s as if we’ve built these cisterns to hold the waters of justice, compassion, and equity, only to find them cracked, leaking, and incapable of sustaining life. And all the while, the fountain of living water—Love itself—stands waiting for us to return.
The Nature of Love
Love does not seek to punish. It seeks to heal. To make whole.
Love does no harm to its neighbor. It seeks to lift up, to restore dignity, to protect and cherish.
Love is the fountain that never runs dry, the unshakable foundation on which a better world can be built.
Yet, how often do we turn away from Love, choosing instead the dry, crumbling systems we’ve created? We’ve exchanged the living water for broken cisterns, thinking they will sustain us.
Returning to Love
What if we dared to imagine a world where Love was our foundation?
What if the church remembered its first love and became a place of radical inclusion, compassion, and justice?
What if the health care system saw every human as sacred, treating care as a right rather than a privilege?
What if the prison system focused on restoration rather than retribution?
What if the political system prioritized people and unity over division?
What if our immigration policies reflected the reality that every human being is our neighbor?
To return to Love is not merely a spiritual ideal; it is the most urgent, practical solution to our world’s brokenness. Imagine what would be possible if every choice we made—individually and collectively—was filtered through the lens of Love.
A Call to Action
It begins with us.
It begins when we stop looking to these broken systems to save us and instead become vessels of the living water.
It begins when we refuse to participate in harm and choose to act in ways that heal.
It begins when we love our neighbor—not in theory, but in action.
If only we would return to Love.
Because Love never fails.
Let’s start this beautiful revolution—not with anger or despair, but with Love. Because the world is thirsty, and Love is the answer.