The River

God’s Will has always been taking me somewhere.   When I make a conscious decision and take the appropriate action to flow with the current, things always work better. 

When I get sucked into the whirlpools of selfishness and self-centeredness, I end up bashed against the rocks of anger and fear.  I harm myself and others with my violent struggles. This causes myself and the people around me a great deal of pain and interrupts my journey.

I see thorny vines of emotional, financial, and physical comfort.  I struggle to reach them mightily with all of my effort, using all of my self will, only to grasp them and watch them slip away.  For they are not the Solution, they are fleeting and temporary at best.  Even if I manage to cling to one, it simply comes un-rooted and slips away.

Yet, still I struggle, still I fight, the tension is mounting, the fear grows exponentially! I try to stand on the shifting pebbles on the bottom of the river.  I try to desperately to gain a purchase on the slippery rocks. I try to stand on the backs of my fellows, I try to raise myself, at their expense.  They retaliate, and yet again I am wounded, battered, bloodied by my relentless urge to propel myself against the current of God’s Will.

I shake my fist in defiance.  I make one more feeble attempt to fight. Again I fail, the result, more pain.

The only way to get out of that vortex of destruction is to let go.  I have to let go of the old ideas to which I have always clung.  I have to cease fighting anything or anyone.  I have to float…  And when I do the loving, caring, hand of my Creator, usually in the form of a sponsor or a dear friend, simply plucks me from the whirlpool, and sets me back in the gentle current of His Grace.  

The water is warmer here.  My wounds are healed, my strength is renewed, and my serenity is restored.  Then and only then can I be of service, God can then use me to help rescue the next drowning man, and he in turn helps another.  And so we journey.

To stay on that course takes some action.  A turn here, a kick there.  Some prayer, some meditation, and always being there when someone reaches out for help.

The rewards are immense, the life is joy filled.  Staying on course isn’t always easy, there will be more rapids and whirlpools ahead I am sure.  But there are more of us now, it is harder to get swept away, when one is surrounded by the Power of God.  When it is manifested in so many ways, and it’s evidence is overwhelming.

I thank God for the River of his Grace and my fellow travelers…

 

Jerry