Trusting and Flowing

“My heavenly guide brought me to the river of pure living waters, shimmering as brilliantly as crystal.” (Revelation 22:1 VOICE)

There is a creek in our neighborhood that has been rerouted to avoid flooding to nearby homes. The original creekbed was excavated and changed. The water flows in a different direction now. It would have been smarter to plan the homesites based on the river rather than changing the trajectory afterwards. 

Richard Rohr describes faith as the ability to trust the flow of God’s love:

“This is a divine process that we don’t have to change, coerce, or improve. We just need to allow it and enjoy it. That takes immense confidence in God, especially when we’re hurting. Often, we feel ourselves get panicky and quickly want to make things right. We lose our ability to be present and go up into our heads and start obsessing. At that point we’re not really feeling or experiencing things in our hearts and bodies. We’re oriented toward making things happen, trying to push or even create our own river. Yet the Big River is already flowing through us and each of us is only one small part of it. (Richard Rohr. Daily Meditations April 1st, 2022)

When I’m hurting, I get panicky and obsessive. The flood of emotions is unsettling. I want everything to be okay as soon as possible. Instead of trusting God, I try to dig tributaries and engineer diversions of my own making. 

The Big River of God’s love is already flowing through us. This divine process does not need to be rerouted, coerced, or improved. We just need to allow it, enjoy it, and build our lives around it. This takes immense confidence in God.