River of Life | Wayfarer

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.
Revelation 22:1-2a (NIV)

Three times a week I get a phone call from Storii.com. The robo-lady asks me a random question and then gives me ten minutes to answer. The recordings are then stored on my personal Storii page where family and friends who have their own Storii account can listen. It’s a brilliant idea. I wish I had recordings of my grandparents and great-grandparents to hear their own personal stories in their own voices. How I would love to hear those voices again.

One of the questions that Storii asked me a few weeks ago was the time in my life that I felt most alive. As I have found to be the case with many of Storii’s questions, I had multiple answers. I shared some of them on the recording.

One of the periods I felt most alive is not deemed acceptable to some. It was a period of time after my divorce. Please don’t read what I’m not writing. I consider the failure of my first marriage and all my mistakes that personally contributed to its demise to be the biggest failure of my life (thus far that is, technically I have time and opportunity to top it). I found divorce to be a terrible, death-like experience complete with those who chose to bury their relationships with me.

What I discovered in profound ways after the divorce was the truth of Corrie Ten Boom’s words: “There is no pit so deep, that God’s love is not deeper still.” Out of the ashes of my marital failure, seeds of new life began to germinate.

But that’s what God does. I wrote it yesterday: Death-to-Life is the meta-theme of the Great Story. I don’t follow the God of death. I follow the God of resurrection, redemption, forgiveness, grace, and love.

Today’s chapter is the end of the Great Story. It’s the last chapter in the 39 book volume, and guess where it ends? It ends back at the beginning. John’s vision reveals that the city he began to describe in yesterday’s chapter contains “the river of life” just like the Garden of Eden (Gen 2:10), and on either side of the river stands the Tree of Life just like the Garden of Eden. There is no more curse of sin just like in the Garden of Eden.

The end is the beginning.

Death-to-Life.

The Pheonix rises.

“Ashes-to-ashes” becomes “ashes-to-Life.”

To paraphrase Corrie: “There ain’t no grave so deep…”

We’ve reached the end. Tomorrow, I begin again.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness.
Romans 6:19 (NIV)

There is movement to life. Swift is the current of the river of life even when we feel relatively stationary. Good Dr. Einstein opened our minds to this reality in his theory of relativity. I sit on an airplane feeling inert and motionless while I am actually flying through the air at hundreds of miles an hour. So I may feel “stuck” in life while day by day the river of life carries me swiftly toward my ultimate destination.

This morning as I read the words above from Paul’s letter to the Romans, I was taken back to my dark years. Having isolated a part of my heart and life from all others, I “offered myself” to impurity. In my secret isolation, I did not perceive how swiftly the river of life carried me onward. It was as if I had hidden myself in a dark, windowless capsule floating heedlessly in life’s river. Nor did I perceive how my impurity “ever increased” until existence inside my dark cocoon became unmanageable chaos. Things were shriveling up and dying inside and out. Something had to change.

I opened the airtight seal on my dark capsule and invited Light in. I could then see enough to claw my way out and on top of my floating chamber. Looking around and getting my bearings, I began using anything I could find as a rudder to begin steering myself in a new direction.

Then I looked up and saw Jesus walking on the water just a ways off to one side. He reached out His hand and smiled. “Come with me,” he said. I looked at the running water between us and stared. I looked back at Him. “Don’t be afraid,” he said his hand still outstretched.

I stepped off the flotsam of my poor choices and reached out to offer my hand to Jesus…