‘They have dug… broken cisterns that cannot hold water.’ Jeremiah 2:13 NIV

We are desirous by nature. We keep desiring things just like we keep taking our next breath. The trouble is, when we get the things we want, they don’t bring us the happiness we yearn for. So, we keep looking for more and more things. Advertising is the business of ‘creating need’. Things we’d put into our ‘want’ category are switched to our ‘need’ category. But according Miroslav Volf, here is the problem: ‘We cannot get enough of what we do not need… No matter how much we have, we remain “not-enough” people. For not-enough people, there exists no lasting soul satisfaction. I saw an ad that featured the tagline “yesterday I didn’t know it existed; today I can’t live without it”. It’s called the myth of more, the myth that one day more will be enough. If we believe this myth, we spend our lives looking for the next thing. It might be a car, or a promotion, or the love of a beautiful woman or handsome man… We keep hoping that the next thing will be it—the source of true satisfaction for our souls. For a few minutes, or perhaps days, we experience true soul satisfaction. Then it wears off. It always wears off.’

Understand this: only Jesus can satisfy; everything else disappoints. God said, ‘My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken Me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.’ (Jeremiah 2:13 NIV) If you are tired of living an empty life, come to Jesus. He won’t disappoint you.

SoulFood: Deut 32:29–34:12, Matt 10:11–20, Ps 49, Pro 12:20–22

The Word for Today is authored by Bob and Debby Gass and published under licence from UCB International Copyright © 2026