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This is what God’s people are to be in the world: vessels of the Holy Spirit, an ever-spreading alluvial fan of thriving life in a hostile land. To be a channel is to be a vessel through which the mighty river’s many blessings are distributed.
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Some of the world’s most fertile land is found in river deltas-the places where a main river branches off into numerous channels and distributaries, each bringing water and sediment to enrich the surrounding soil. We are called not just to drink from this refreshing water when and how we want it, but to let its wild power move and mold us to be the “living stones” (1 Pet. But God is a mighty and forceful river, and his followers should throw themselves into his current rather than standing safely along the banks. Too often Christians domesticate God, seeing him as a picturesque river straight out of a Thomas Kinkade painting-a peaceful water feature to adorn our personal paradise but not shape or disrupt it in any dangerous way. Lewis suggests in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, God is not safe, but he’s good. It should inspire in us awestruck terror as much as soothing calm. One look at the Grand Canyon (or any canyon) and a river’s jaw-dropping power to shape and form is clear. A river is a powerful thing even a babbling brook can have a current too strong to swim against. The pastoral peace of Zion’s Virgin River can become deadly in a heartbeat if a thunderstorm sets off a flash food. We shouldn’t think that since rivers are often places of serenity, they are safe. Our survival depends on our proximity to God, the River of Life, the source of the only “living water” (John 4:7–15) that can truly transform and sustain us. Rivers create fertile farmland, vibrant ecosystems, and access to trade. This is why so many of the world’s great cities-London, Paris, Cairo, Rome-developed around rivers.
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Riverside trees thrive because they are constantly fed with a waterway that never runs dry. The imagery makes sense to those who have approached a river in a desert and seen the sudden change from barren, leafless trees to sturdy, leafy oaks and willow forests by a river.
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This is in contrast to the wicked, who “are like chaff that the wind drives away” (v. Psalm 1 compares a man whose “ delight is in the law of the LORD” to “like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither” (1:3). The more time I spend around the rivers of God’s creation, the more theological lessons I glean. Incidentally, this is why time outside, in nature, away from screens and digital distraction, is good not only for our physical health, but also our spiritual health. If we look close enough at nature we should understand God more, in the same way that spending hours of focused time in a museum’s Picasso retrospective should help us understand the famous abstract artist more. The biblical writers use nature imagery often to reveal God’s character, and our relationship to him, because nature is God’s handiwork and naturally bears his signature. Three Lessons from RiversĪ river is a classic example of how God’s creation helps us understand truth about him, if our senses are unblocked enough to perceive it (e.g. When biblical writers use “river” imagery to convey God’s life-giving presence, they do so because it makes sense to almost everyone on this planet. John envisions “ the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb” in the new creation (Rev. The psalmist famously envisions a river in one of the Bible’s most comforting passages, Psalm 46 (“There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God”). It’s no wonder, then, that river imagery figures prominently in Scripture.