Do you ever feel like you’re on an endless hamster wheel, trying to find things that will fulfill you? How can we keep all the pieces of our lives in check, without trying to draw our meaning or value from them?
You're not alone. This episode unravels the hidden idols and addictions in our lives - from the seven deadly sins to social media validation and even our seemingly harmless habits. We'll guide you on how to recognize these broken cisterns that are leading us astray and show you how to lean into the fountain of living water instead.
Struggling with personal issues or feel like a puppet in the hands of social media, always seeking validation? Or perhaps you're caught in the dangerous loop of playing the victim instead of owning up to your actions? The enemy skilfully dresses up the mundane and traps us in unsuspecting ways. We'll show you how to see through these disguises and navigate the treacherous terrain of personal struggles. This episode is your map to recognizing and overcoming the pitfalls that keep us away from the Lord's living water. Tune in for a transformative journey towards spiritual fulfillment.
Do you ever feel like you’re on an endless hamster wheel, trying to find things that will fulfill you? How can we keep all the pieces of our lives in check, without trying to draw our meaning or value from them?
You're not alone. This episode unravels the hidden idols and addictions in our lives - from the seven deadly sins to social media validation and even our seemingly harmless habits. We'll guide you on how to recognize these broken cisterns that are leading us astray and show you how to lean into the fountain of living water instead.
Struggling with personal issues or feel like a puppet in the hands of social media, always seeking validation? Or perhaps you're caught in the dangerous loop of playing the victim instead of owning up to your actions? The enemy skilfully dresses up the mundane and traps us in unsuspecting ways. We'll show you how to see through these disguises and navigate the treacherous terrain of personal struggles. This episode is your map to recognizing and overcoming the pitfalls that keep us away from the Lord's living water. Tune in for a transformative journey towards spiritual fulfillment.
Speaker 1:
Do you ever feel like life can get too complicated and maybe even overwhelming? Yeah, me too, and it's okay. My name's Martha Gano, and in this podcast we're going to talk about life, love, faith, family, relationships, all kinds of things, and we're going to drink from what God wants to pour into us, one small sip at a time, because when it's the fountain of living water, small sips make all the difference, because it'll be just you and me. Sometimes we'll have a friend join us. If we could have lunch together today, this is what I'd want to talk about. Hey, hey, hey everybody, and welcome back to the podcast. So excited to have you here again today to hang out for a few minutes.
Speaker 1:
We're going to continue something we started talking about in the first podcast, so if you haven't listened to episode one, you may want to hop back there, take a quick lesson, see how we got here, what we're going to talk about, where we're headed. But just a quick recap. On the first episode we talked about the idea of broken cisterns Cisterns being something in the ancient world, including ancient Israel, that were dug out underneath homes to hold emergency water, because water was such an issue, such a commodity and sometimes really scarce, so rainwater would wash down over the ground, flow into the cisterns underneath their homes. But it was really dirty stuff because they threw everything out in the street waste, trash, all kinds of stuff. It was basically sewer water. So we translated that to issues of the heart using the verse in Jeremiah, jeremiah 2.13 that says my people have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and they've honed for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water. So when you translate that to issues of the heart, it's anything we drink from except the fountain of living water, which is the Lord. Well, you'd think it'd be totally unappealing to drink sewer water, whether it's real or in your heart.
Speaker 1:
But I think part of the human condition is that we are the constant subject of this intense marketing campaign by the enemy to get us to believe that sewer water tastes great and that we have to have it, that it's the only thing that's going to fill our souls up. And then, when that's not working, he kicks it up a notch to get us to believe that we just haven't drunk enough for it to start tasting good or we haven't had enough to fill us up. Anything he can get us to do to keep drinking that sewer water, poisoning our souls, to keep the door of our lives open to him and to keep us away from the living water. So we talked about some quick examples of what some sewer waters of life could be, things that keep us from drinking from the fountain. And obviously, with each person we're going to have our own different issues, things that appeal to us, things that tempt us, pull us away from the Lord.
Speaker 1:
And then, of course, you've got your traditional terrible things. I even Googled the seven deadly sins. I felt like watching Monty Python immediately afterwards, for some reason, but a pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth. And then you've got your addictions right Alcohol, substance addiction, pornography and sex addiction, vices, anything in the bad category that have obvious impacts that are negative on our lives. People, we love all that stuff. But the shocker for me was that I actually congratulations, martha. I can take even good things and I can try to draw purpose, my meaning, my significance, even love from them. That's how I can take gifts that God's given me, that he meant for me to enjoy, and inappropriately turn them into what they were never meant to be, which is a source of life, and you name it, we humans. We can turn it into an idol, right? We talked about a few of these last episode our spouses, our kids, shopping, careers, our success, our health, our bodies, our homes, our cars.
Speaker 1:
When my kids were teenagers, you guys, it was shoes. Maybe it's still is shoes right now that kids have to have, and in the 80s now I'm aging myself we definitely had to have a certain brand of shoes, but like one pair or two pairs. Kids. These days they have to have like more shoes than a meldamercos, or they're not happy. My kids would come to me mom, look, I found a great pair of shoes. Can I get it? Good price? But what about your other 15 pair of shoes? Well, no, I'd need a pair of workout shoes. Can you not work out in another of the 15 pairs of tennis shoes that you already have? No, mom, they would get dirty. Wouldn't you look more cool if people knew you worked out? No, mom, please let me have the shoes. If we can stop talking about tennis shoes, I'll give you anything you want. Even more than that, you guys.
Speaker 1:
It can become things that you would think could never be bad Things, like our service in the church or our spiritual self-discipline. We can actually start drawing from those instead of just having them have their appropriate place in our lives. We just have this crazy capacity to turn anything into a source instead of a gift, and I think it's because we're being marketed to in part. We'll talk about that some more. I'll never forget.
Speaker 1:
Also, speaking of my kids, when they were young, I decided that scrapbooking was something that a successful mom did. So all of my scrapbooking peeps shout out to you. But again, scrapbooking is wonderful, but it was what I did with it. I decided that it was defining value in me as a mom. And when I realized it was a problem, we'd had the morning together. The kids are playing a Fetem lunch and I remember looking at them and thinking to myself when will you go down for your nap so I can document your happy childhood? And at that point you're thinking right now we need to start a go fund me for therapy for Martha's kids Number one, probably number two. I didn't say it out loud, I just thought it. But I realized in that moment hey, this is out of line, this needs to go away for right now, because I need to get some perspective. So I did, I put everything up, put it away and just started refocusing on loving my kids, pulling away from my scrapbooking addiction.
Speaker 1:
Okay, now, if you're a younger mom, you may be saying to yourself what is scrapbooking? Well, my sister, esther, describes it perfectly. She says it's Instagram in the olden days. Is that great? It's the modern version of how, what we do today on social media. We present the highlight reel of our lives, and I think we all know by now that our social media focus can get out of whack really quickly.
Speaker 1:
I've learned to recognize the triggers, for example, as soon as I'm in an awesome experience and I reach for my phone to document it. Now, to be fair, I am a storyteller and an educator, so a big part of my social media motivation is to share adventures and funny stories and cool stuff. But I have learned to recognize when I've slipped into posting for my own self affirmation. I'm checking to see how many likes or views, or I spend too much time thinking about what people think about how I'm posting. I maybe start spending too much energy worrying about staging and lighting and effects to make my life look like it's more than just my life. I don't know. I think these feelings are pretty common when it comes to social media. Right, and in those moments I know, martha. Just like I used to back away from the scrapbooking, I need to back away from the Facebook and the Instagram, take a deep breath and say what's actually going on here, so you know what else.
Speaker 1:
So that seems not as insidious, but we can draw from things that actually can be more damaging and can actually poison our lives, Things like emotions, conditions of the heart, like anger. I'll just be honest. Let's shoot straight. Let's be strangely satisfying or unforgiveness when we rehearse all the wrongs that have been done against us in a situation. There's a almost a sick kind of dopamine release that can become addictive, like no kidding. You can literally become addicted to unforgiveness and bitterness. I have seen it, I've been pulled toward it, I've been pulled into it some, and then I was rescued from it, which we'll talk about later. So struggle with any of that, make sure to come back.
Speaker 1:
Or how about this one? I have to always be the victim in my life. That's a great one, you guys, because usually it's based around truth, things that have actually happened that were wrong, that were not okay, but the story that we weave around those things can actually remove what is the starting place of my freedom from the trap Now by taking out of the picture my personal responsibility for my behavior. Now hang with me here. In other words, yes, I have a case for having been hurt and even angry. What was done was wrong, inappropriate, not okay. But even though what happened was not fair, at a certain point I have to face the fact that I'm still in charge of my own responses to it and what I do, my choices after what's happened to me, what I do, what I feel, how I process it. That's what's going to determine my future, not the event itself. When I find that I'm justifying my bad responses because of what happened to me, that's when I know I may be in trouble. So if you find yourself in the place where it's always someone else's fault I have been there and done it you may be in over your head on this one a little.
Speaker 1:
I had a counselor once who told me to beware of quote gathering all the righteousness into myself. When she first said that let me say it again gathering all the righteousness into myself. When she first said that phrase I'll be honest with you guys I was like well, I do have all the righteousness in this situation. What is she talking about? I didn't even come close to getting what she meant. I thought that if I wasn't completely the innocent victim, that it invalidated what had been done against me. That was unacceptable. I tend to be black and white, so I thought that I had to be all right and the others involved all wrong, or I couldn't do what needed to appropriately be done in the situation. It took me a long time to start getting that. So if you're in that place, it's okay. Just again come back so we can keep talking about it.
Speaker 1:
And speaking of having to always be right, that's one of my favorites. This one, you guys, is so addictive and so destructive that you will literally watch your relationships dying all around you and not care as long as everyone acknowledges that you're right Somewhere along the way. I have been sold the lie that I'll be safe, happy, I'll maintain control, my people will be safe, something as long as I'm right. So let's pause here. If you've lived any amount of time at all on this planet, you've realized that control is actually an illusion, and all the things I've ever done in trying to control my world has just made it worse. I'm pretty sure it's because it's not in my job description, the fact that you know God is nowhere in my name. It's not my first, middle or last name, but that's a really good marketing campaign to get us to believe that we are God, that we can control things and that we should get involved in that way.
Speaker 1:
But what happens when we allow the Lord to take us away from our sewer waters whatever yours are, whatever mine are and teach us to drink from the fountain of living water? Well, I've mentioned it before, but whenever we are removed from our existing form of sustenance in this case, even if it's sewer water it feels like we're going to die. That's a natural response. But when you're connected with your father in this close personal relationship where you've learned, you can trust him that he's for you, that he wants what's best for you, that he's not trying to prove anything or punish you, that his heart is always to save, deliver and heal you, that is when we can stop screaming quite so much on the journey from the sewer water to the fountain, because we begin to trust that he's removing me from what's killing me so I can start drinking what will save me, because he didn't just take me from death to life. One time he does it again and again and again because it's who he is, it's what he does, because we live on a broken planet and because I'm the subject of that terrible marketing campaign that we talked about while I'm here.
Speaker 1:
Have you ever wondered how some people go through terrible storms in life? Horrible things happen to them, but they come through the other side stronger, even tender, while other people are crushed under the weight of the hard things in their lives or they never escape the bitterness of the disappointments they've experienced. Well, I know there are a lot of factors that I can't even pretend to know about in each situation, but I can tell you I've observed one thing that people who are drawing their life source from the God who created them to be with them have discovered how to let him take them from broken to healing, to healthy and then on to whole, over and over and over again as they journey through life. Each time they get wounded, they know the process Go back, I'm broken again. Go back to healing, to healthy and then whole. They've stopped trying to control whether or not hard things happen to them, realizing that life here just guarantees some pain, some heartbreak and some suffering. They've just found this deep connection that actually makes what second Corinthians 4, 8 to 10 a reality in their lives that they will be hard pressed but not crushed, perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed because of a crazy, not even natural power. That's not from us or anything else in this life except from him. I don't know about you, but that's what I want in my cup. My next question is how do I get that living water in my cup? And that is what we're going to be talking about next time.
Speaker 1:
So come back. I love spending time with you. Hey you guys. Thanks for hanging out with us today. I hope you got some refreshment from this SIP from the Fountain. If you're curious to hear more or if you like what you've heard, you can go ahead and subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen to yours, or follow our Instagram account, sips from the Fountain or our Facebook page by the same name. Special thanks for cover our photography to the Sarah D Harper, and I can't wait to hang out with you guys next time. Thanks so much. Love y'all. Bye, bye.
