The Dammed River

It was so stinky. It smelled like something had died! No, I am not talking about our car on an eighteen-hour road trip with my boys, although that blog is coming. I am talking about the shallow, murky waters I have come across when my parents use to make me go camping. Whatever life may have once thrived in the stagnant bodies of water has since died. The stench enters your nostrils about the time you see the slimy green fur peeking through its shoreline. Sometimes there is even an oily haze over the top hiding the waters ability to offer the sunlight’s reflection.

It wasn’t long ago that my days were spent in secret. I wasn’t hiding; I was just hidden in my cocoon and enjoying a season of rest. I had been through a tough first 30 some years of my life and God gave me that time to recover from heartbreak in ministry, relationships, and mommy exhaustion; but, mostly mommy exhaustion.

Having two boys about 16 months apart while going through extreme financial hardship, and so many other disappointments had me praying crazy prayers. “Lord, please let me have a nervous break down so I can go away to a hospital for a little while. No one knows how strong I have had to be or how my high tolerance for pain has shielded them from realizing how badly I need help. Lord help me to lose control so I can get help”.

Well, I guess I am stronger than I thought. The funny farm never took me away in a little white jacket, but God literally hid me away under His broad shadow.

My kids were growing more independent, so I got to spend hours out of my day praying and studying the Bible. Being new to the area, I didn’t have very many friends yet, nor did I spend much time on the phone since I was getting filled up on God’s Word.  My home was my oasis, and I loved never leaving it.

But then God started drawing attention to me. He rolled back His shadow and nudged me out of the nest. He told me He was going to do it. He even got my permission first. Still, I was angry when He first asked me to step back into leadership and ministering to people outside of my own home. I knew the pulls that would come to tug me away from spending time with Him or from putting my family first. I remembered the pride of moving up in leadership, of getting noticed and forgetting that God was the more amazing one and I was just to be His friend as I loved others like He loved me.

I didn’t want any part in all of that mess!  I didn’t want to be distracted from the revelations that He was giving me. But mostly, I think I was afraid. I never wanted to go back to having all the right things to say but without really knowing God. I knew I would die if I ever found myself too busy to hear Him again.

I remember having the worship music playing in the background as I began to curl up next to Jesus to hear what was on His heart for the day. He kept showing me His heart for friends and asking me to get up and share it with them in emails right away. He would speak to me encouraging words for them as I typed.

At first it was fun, but then I got frustrated. I started to wonder if I was reverting back to my old ways of going to God just to get something for someone else.  I wanted any ministry I did to come from the overflow of what God was doing in my own heart.

What happened next is not something I would recommend. It’s one of those moments when you ask yourself later, “WHAT WAS I THINKING?!”

Snuggled up to the Lord again, I felt interrupted by the encouraging downloads for someone in my ladies group. This time I said, “NO! I won’t do it. This is OUR time together.”

My response was followed by His silence. And now the very thing I feared had come upon me.

This year God has shown me how life in Him is meant to be like a powerful river.

Much like a river where the rushing waters produce oxygen for the fish and living creatures to breath causing them to thrive; when God is allowed to flow through us like a river He will breath life into us and into the lives all around.  Many waters trickle downward towards the river from the mountaintops until the river grows wider and stronger.

But the day that I said “no” to God I built a dam that ceased His flow in my life.  I could no longer receive from my life source nor did I have anything to give until I was willing to damn that dam.

The longer we allow a dam to stop the flow of God in and through us the more life will cease to exist. When I stopped the flow of God in my life, I was like a slowly diminishing puddle. My heart began to grow stale and a haze started to form over it hiding my ability to offer the Son’s light and His reflection.

I don’t want to be a stinky, shallow, follower of Christ that no one can stand being around. This year I have learned how to get filled up without holding on to tightly to the deep waters because I know that there is always more rushing to meet me. He is a River that will never run dry just so long as I stay open to receive and I never build dams.

Psalm 1:3 “They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season, their leaves never wither, and they prosper in all they do.”

Jeremiah 17:8, “For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters that spreads out its roots by the river; and it shall not see and fear when heat comes; but its leaf shall be green. It shall not be anxious and full of care in the year of drought, nor shall it cease yielding fruit.”