I’ve been going through a lot of little things lately.
I feel like I can’t get the ground under me to stop moving.
I’m fighting against change. I have been white-knuckling it mostly.
I don’t like change.
I’ve been determined to be still, and so I have failed to see the need for movement.
God mirrors so many things in nature to help us see truth. Like the change of seasons, it helps us appreciate each season for its own characteristics. We miss crispness of fall in the middle of summer, we miss the heat of summer in the midst of winter, and we miss the freshness of spring in the humidity of summer. God knew we would not appreciate any season without all of them. I rarely take the time to appreciate the season I'm in, the right now. In reality the right now is all that I have. It’s all that matters. Right now is where I can meet God, but I have been wanting the "right now" to be "then".
God typically works in themes with me, lately it seems to be water.
It’s even to the point the “Just Around the Riverbend” from Pocahontas is playing in my head. This verse from Isaiah has been on the chalkboard of my fridge for months, I've been looking at it, but not really seeing it.
"Behold I am doing a new thing;
Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
And rivers in the dessert."
Isaiah 43:19
When I read this the other day, that question jumped out at me. Do you not perceive it?
No, I hadn’t.
I didn’t see the new thing God was doing, because I only saw where I was. I didn’t want to move. I wasn’t open to being a stream in the dessert, I like my pond right where it is.
I love water, I love boats, I love to waterski, I love, love the water. When we first moved to Georgia I was so confused by what someone called a Lake. The lake these people were referring to was a mud puddle. See I grew up in East Tennessee, right outside Chattanooga. It’s near Watts Bar Lake on the Tennessee River, where you can see your toes in the water. What makes this lake so pretty is that they are really part of the Tennessee River, which is always moving. It’s what keeps the water fresh. With no movement, the water grows stagnant. Without movement, life grows stagnant. Not only does it loose it’s freshness, it loses its effectiveness.
And then I heard it in my head, “God is in the midst of her, she will not be moved”. It’s from Psalm 46.
“There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy habitation of the Most High.
God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved;
God will help her when morning dawns.” Verses 4&5
I can’t hold onto God with one hand and the scenery with my other hand it won’t work. The only way that I am not moved, is by clinging to God. Then He is in the midst of me, and I’m not really moving, I’m just freely flowing where He wants me to go.
I love that this same Psalm is home to this very famous verse; “Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth” (46:10).
In God, I can have the peace of being still while flowing like a river into all the places He has planned for me to be.
It just means I have to give up my plans and cling to His.
Adventure awaits.
“There is but one good; that is God.
Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him.”
C.S. Lewis
When things look bad, I’m not looking at God. He’s doing a new thing; I have to look to Him to perceive it.
Where are you not perceiving God, where are you not ready for a new thing because instead of looking at God you’re focused on the swirling water?