Where the River Flows Life Flourishes
John 7:37-39 (NLT)
A river watered the garden and then flowed out of Eden and divided into four branches. Genesis 2:10 (NLT)
There is a river whose streams bring joy to the city of God, the holy place where the Most High lives. Psalm 46:4 (GW)
As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.
Psalm 42:1 (NIV)
Pastor’s Blog
We don’t know a lot about the Garden of Eden, but we do know this, a river ran through it.
The image of flowing “living” water is used in scripture about 150 times, most often as a kind of a picture of spiritual life and there’s good reason for this. Israel was a desert country. A river is grace, a river is gift, a river is life. Genesis 2:10 is not primarily about geography. It’s about the human soul flourishing. The point of Psalm 46:4 is that where the river flows life flourishes. Where the river dries up we die. Psalm 42 (perhaps you know the song that comes from it) pictures a desert where the waters have all dried up and that deer is going to die if it doesn’t find water.
That’s me. That’s you. If I’m cut off from the Spirit of God it means unsatisfied desires, spiritual dryness, moral failure, emotional debt. In the flow of the Holy Spirit we find life, the life that is truly life (1 Timothy 6;19)
The most important thing we can do is not to “try harder”, rather to jump into the river where the flow will carry us.
A wonderful spiritual exercise is to imagine that picture and imagine what it would look like for you, practically speaking to approach your days not so much in terms of effortful trying harder, rather in term of jumping into the river.
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One of the 150 times "living" water is mentioned is found in Isaiah 43:18-21 and it is very meaningful for me.
ReplyDelete"Forget about what's happened; don't keep going over old history. Be alert, be present. I'm about to do something brand-new. It's bursting out! Don't you see it? There it is! I'm making a road through the desert, rivers in the badlands. Wild animals will say "Thank you!" - the coyotes and the buzzards- Because I provided water in the desert, rivers through the sun-baked earth. Drinking water for the people I chose, the people I made especially for myself, a people costom-made to praise me." The Msg