Spiritual Water and Brokenness

Oct 10, 2025

3 min read

Cistern: How Spiritual Brokenness Begets Transformation

I was recently asked to write down a dream I once had:

I dreamed that I was a broken cistern. What is that? Well, it was like a well, but without a bottom leading to a water source, rather, it was meant to catch rainfall...Imagine a cistern that looks like a well, but without any depth. Just a ring of stone capable of holding water with a stone or cement bottom. Imagine this particular cistern is broken though, like its been ripped apart to access the water by animals and people.

The similarity here is that the tree behind it is like the cistern in my dream. In my dream, there was an olive tree behind and next to the cistern, benefitting from its proximity to the water inside. It was a desert area, arid and dry.

Then, an ape man with a battle axe came and chopped one last hole into the cistern to get a drink, ruining it completely and negating its ability to hold water.

My last thought was: “I’m going to die.” But then my vision panned to the tree growing behind it and I realized, now I’m the tree.

I think the whole point of this dream was simple: Life has broken us, but the point of a cistern is not solely to store water but to store it so other creatures can use it. The brokenness was a spiritual and emotional brokenness, and the tree would grow as a result of the brokenness. Fortunately, a well or cistern can be repaired with the right tools. But a tree or person will die without enough water.

A person crazy enough to break a water source when all they needed to do was reach the water… is one not accustomed to thinking about the results or implications of his actions. Or, someone who no longer needed the function of the cistern and wanted the water for himself. Like the broken bowl in my china cabinet. (See Broken and Consecrated) I wonder how much of the pain people go through in life is because of the mistakes of others. Many of them probably are and many more are growing pains. Food for thought!

Winter 2025

Cistern: Part II- A Living Tree

I’ve had a hard week on multiple fronts of my life. And its given me some ideas.

If I am not the cistern but the tree…maybe that represents the transformation that Jesus can do in a life when a person is willingly letting Him work. Like, looking for that way to work with God instead of just bumping along on and into anything and everything on the way.
When I think about it, do we go through our lives gradually being broken until we realize that nothing can change the fact that we are broken and need fixing?
I’ve been through multiple times where I definitely endured a pattern of change. I remember a professor of mine called it “stretching the mind.” And, the process is difficult and it hurts. If it didn’t hurt, then we wouldn’t be growing.
There are times where I say: “I’m so tired of growing! I just want to stop.”
Yep, so being a water source has its perks but does not come without its struggles. What fun!