The Way The River Runs – Thanksgiving 2021

It has to start somewhere, those rushing torrents that carve our lands, bring a drink to growing crops, slack the thirst of drying throats. Zillions of collected drops flow as one seeking where to go, meandering, rushing, or cascading o’er. Perhaps a dewdrop starts it all… yet from where has the dewdrop come to softly land on arbor leaf, and grassy blade, quietly to give the earth a drink? From moisture in the air? Still, how does that rise to merge with clouds, pregnant then with heavy copious rain, falling into droplets that join and run in glad abandon, perhaps to form a river?

Such wonders are given to us every day, the lay of the land, nature’s ring of beauty unimaginable… something always more glorious to see. From grand magnificence to those invisible microcosms living within our very frames, rivers running through our flesh, nourishing, or carrying ill, depending. Mind boggling it is to fathom deep how these rivers began, continue to run, rejuvenated themselves by an invisible plan that goes on and on and on, until it stops.

Symbiotic, in a way, are the river and man who has his way with it. Given permission to steward it, influence its course, man is also at its mercy. Still, without the river, the water there, even man will die. Where comes that water that is our nourishment? Not only for our bodies but beyond? The spiritual water that brings life, gives breath to this temporal frame? Like dew that invisibly forms comes water for our spirit’s needs, a provision made from someplace, Someone more grand, way out there, yet somehow deep within.

Holy Spirit come dwell in me. Let Your living water flow generously through my being and out into a parched world. That when the time comes for my earthly form to die, my flesh to return to dry powdery dust, my spirit yet vibrantly alive will rise hydrated with the living water of Your love! And gushing full the unending source, the River of Life, will never end running its course through me.

Thank You that it has started here. I am walking along Your steady streams of living water that run from those places high and low. And when I wander into dry desolate paths, somehow You always bring me back to drink deeply once again. To splash, to dip, to swim, to float, and rest in Your embrace. Thank You, LORD, for this amazing grace, this River of Life You’ve given!