Bud-and-Flourish

  The Discipline Of Spiritual Tenacity- Oswald Chambers Be still, and know that I am God. —  Psalm 46:10 Tenacity is more than endurance; it’s endurance combined with the absolute certainty that what we expect to happen is going to happen. Tenacity isn’t simply hanging on. Hanging on can be a weakness, a sign that we’re too afraid to let go. Tenacity is the supreme effort of refusing to believe that our hero is going to be defeated. As disciples, our greatest fear isn’t that we will be damned. It’s that Jesus Christ will be defeated, and that the things he stood for—love and justice and forgiveness and kindness—won’t win out in the end. God calls us to the discipline of spiritual tenacity. He asks us to do more than simply hang on. He asks us to work deliberately for him in the certainty that he’s not going to be defeated. If we are disappointed and losing hope just now, it means that we are being purified. There is nothing noble the human mind has ever hoped for or dream...

 Jeremiah 2:13 NKJV “For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, And hewn themselves cisterns—broken cisterns that can hold no water." Forsaken- abandon, leave behind In Israel rain comes in the winter months and it's typically hot and dry in the summer.  Cisterns were used to collect and store rainwater.  They were constructed using bedrock and the inside was covered with limestone plaster so the water wouldn't seep through the cracks.  Obviously if there were cracks, water would seep out making it completely useless.  The people would have labored in vain and would not profit from it one bit.  All that work for nothing and they would still be thirsty. The people of Israel understood this message.  They had turned away from God.  They were no longer fully devoted to Him and were now "idolaters" (Jeremiah 2:5)  They were pursuing false gods rather than turning to the Fountain of Living Water....