Heart Tracks - Run To The River

"Everything that touches the water of this river will live. Fish will abound in the Dead Sea, for its waters will be healed. Wherever this water flows, everything will live." Ezekiel 47:9....."Down, always down, water runs, always looking for yet lower and lower places to flow.....The river of joy flows down to the lowest places." Ann Voskamp

I love the first nine verses of Ezekiel 47. They speak of the River of God which the prophet was shown in a vision and which flowed from the Temple of God, that symbolized His Presence. In the vision, the prophet was shown the river, and then directed to step out into it. He obeyed and did so by degrees. He first went ankle deep, then knee, then waist, till finally, he was immersed, and could but go with the flow of the river. In essence, he was one with the river. God's river. God's presence and life. We are called, commanded to be one with them. Immersed in them. Are we? Are you? Or, do we have a degree of depth to which we're willing to go? A depth that in the end, allows us to maintain some sense of control? The River of God is always flowing. The question for each of us is, does it flow by us, either as we stand on the shore, or around and past us as we stand partially immersed, but not fully in? Not fully in, and never fully experiencing the healing, empowering life giving river that is God.

There have been some beautiful worship choruses written over the last couple of decades about this river. I love to play them as I muddle through on my guitar. A lyric in one of them says, "I run to the river." Like children run to the water on a hot summer day, that is how we are to run to His river of life. Not tenatively, but fully, completely, diving into His river of life, healing, joy and peace. Immersed in the river, living in the "atmosphere," for lack of a better word, of that river. As the Scriptures say, His river is always flowing, and the most barren of deserts cannot stop its flow to and through us. Neither can the presence of death both around and even within us. The River Of God is a river of life. It is a flow that nothing can withstand....but it can be avoided, run from. It is flowing right now. Are you running to the river, or from it?

The Dead Sea is exactly what it's name says. Nothing can live in it. It is a body of water devoid of life. Yet the Father says that even it will bring forth life when its waters are touched by the waters of His Life. So it is with all areas of death within us. Anything within that seeks to steal joy, peace, hope, purity, is a place of death. Wherever anger, bitterness, unforgiveness, fear, sin in any form prevails in us, that is an area of death. The only healing for any of it is to be found in the River of God. No matter to what depth within us it may be found, His river of life will flow to it. As Voskamp says, "the river of joy flows down to the lowest places." There is no place, no event, no happening in our lives before or now, that it cannot and will not reach. The River of God is the fullness of the life of His Son, Jesus Christ. It will seek us out in the deepest desert and the darkest cave. In those places of darkness and death, He will bring fullness of life and hope. New life, and new hope. Has the river of His life found you. The river is flowing. Run to the river.

Blessings,
Pastor O