Today I just desire to talk about one thing that is on my mind.
It is a quote from Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, according to the Bible.
Here it is: Drink water from your own cistern,
flowing water from your own well.
Should your springs be scattered abroad,
streams of water in the streets?
Let them be for yourself alone,
and not for strangers with you.
Let your fountain be blessed,
and rejoice in the wife of your youth… (Proverbs 5:15-18)
This is what these words mean to me: Drink water from your own cistern means stay within your own mind, heart and body. The cistern is the body, the container along with your mind and heart. I add to that a comment that answers come from within and not outside of us.
That line of thinking is supported by the verse — Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets?
When we start to look for answers outside of ourselves we get scattered. Have you ever noticed that? I have. Even late into my life when someone stood beside me when I was writing a test I would feel so self conscious and afraid. What was that about? It said I was looking for someone from the outside to judge my work. I no longer had any confidence in my self. I had been conditioned to believe someone out there had the answer and was the judge of my work.
I no longer enjoyed what came up from my cistern, my well, my inspiration and was letting others determine my thought.
My thought became split between what came up in me and what I thought others thought. My thinking was no longer mine. It became like streams of water in the streets. It was fragmented because my thoughts were now conditioned by people outside of me. I either feared them or was in awe of them.
It’s as if my cistern became cracked and the water was running all over. My thought process got all mixed up.
I guess I lost confidence in my self.
Here comes the reminder in this verse. “Let them be for yourself alone and not for the strangers with you”
In other words let your thoughts, feelings and impressions be your own. Enjoy them and trust them and surely do not let the stranger determine for you what they mean.
After all they are your thoughts.
Somewhere in the process of growing up we learn to distrust our own thought and we bear the consequences. We feel like broken cistern. Like vessels who’s streams are running everywhere in the streets.
We have the privilege and the ability to come back, as the verse says: Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth.
That means the person you are is like a vessel. Your mind is under your control, inside that vessel. Enjoy it. This is the wife of your youth. This is you. The you you are born to be. Isn’t that is wonderful? The wife of you youth is the you, you appeared as in this world.
These verses tell us to remember who we are and to learn to trust again the ideas, thoughts and inspirations that come from within. God is not out there, after all. God is truly within and so we have a basis upon which to trust our own thinking.
In brief the words from Proverbs are telling us to “stop living from outside of ourselves.” “IDENTIFY WITH YOUR SELF–YOUR CISTERN, YOUR VESSEL.”
“Break the identification with the answers coming from outside”. “Trust your SELF.” “Stop wasting your energy by trying to please someone else.”
“Come back to your Self and Trust It”
After all == it’s all we’ve got isn’t it? What you identified with – the outside (streams) or the inside (cistern) governs your life subconsciously and you wonder why your life is as it is.
The above reading has given you a clue.
This is how I see it.
How do you see it?
Peace
Norm