everything else

I have dreams sometimes that I know are significant, due to the symbolism and how emphatically they appear, sometimes over and over. I dreamt last night that our family had some sort of a water system, like a collection cistern or a well, and the water kept becoming contaminated. Nothing we seemed to do fixed it, and the well kept springing leaks. We called on outside help, but no one seemed to know what to do.

Without thinking or praying much about this, just drawing on what I know about such things and what scripture says about water, it is a symbol of spiritual life, vitality and purity. Jesus is identified as "Living Water". Broken cisterns were religious leaders who did not live right and therefore had no life within themselves to offer to their flock. A muddied stream implied going outside the marriage commitment for another person. Bitter and fresh water mixed were compared in James to someone who blesses and curses with their mouth.

I think the issue here is spiritual self-examination. Within one's own personal life, if things are not right or pure before God, that becomes an issue that flows out to every other area of life. That the water in my dream was the source of life for the family is indicative of how we do not ever live simply unto ourselves. How we think, how we act, how we prioritize, all of that, flows out into our homes, workplaces, everywhere we go and everything we touch. I realized I'm dirtying the water by having my priorities out of order in certain areas of my life. My joy is gone. The sermon yesterday was about family, and the pastor reminded everyone, God first, family next, church commitment and then everything else. My "everything else" was getting into the well. I know what I have to do.