Having read with interest the call of Abraham, the many purposeful provisions for his descendants, and the action-packed narratives of Israel and Judah it is mindboggling to see the Gentile world locking on to ancient conventions without a raised eyebrow.

For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.

Jeremiah 2:13

I see, in the 21st century exactly what Jeremiah saw: people pushing God off the grid, and fashioning strainers – sieves – as water vessels.