A Confession

With all the news in recent days of the flooding along the Missouri River, the subject of rivers and dams keeps coming up at our house.  I've been telling my children how I spent all of my school years in communities along the Missouri River.  We lived near Gavins Point Dam and the twenty-five mile long Lewis & Clark Lake created behind it.  As a young girl who hadn't yet seen an ocean or even one of the Great Lakes, I was quite amazed at the enormity of the lake.  As I explained to my children how the dam created a huge and wonderful recreation area upstream, and how at the same time it reduced the river below the spillway to a rather unimpressive size, an awareness of a convicting truth crept over me.  It was a picture of my life.

I must confess--I have built and maintained a spiritual dam.  Maybe you have, too.  The Lord has poured encouragement and comfort into my life, teaching me much through His Word, for years, but, for the most part, I've kept it as a private reservoir, for the exclusive benefit of myself, my family, and only a few others.  Meanwhile, somebody else may be in a spiritual drought downstream and would give anything for some of that life-giving water.  Sure, I had my reasons.  Who would want to listen to me anyway?  I'm not perfect; I certainly don't have my life totally together.  I still have problems of my own.

I just wasn't getting the point.  I was blind to the full extent of what God intends to do.  The Apostle Paul reveals God's perspective on this, "Blessed be the the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort; who comforts us in all our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.  For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; or if we are comforted, it is for your comfort . . ."  (II Corinthians 1:3-6)

Did you see the implications here?  What God pours into our lives, He means for us to pass on.  That means no spiritual dam building, no obstruction of the flow.  And if you've got a problem, that doesn't mean you're left alone or disqualified from being a blessing to somebody else.  Quite the opposite--the God of all comfort will be your comfort, and then intends for you to be the means of blessing somebody else with what He gave you.

Don't worry--it's not about attracting attention to ourselves.  It's about humbly letting the cascade of blessing flow freely through our lives from God to others.  John the Baptist got it right when he said of Jesus, "He must increase, but I must decrease."  (John 3:30)

So if you know Him, don't hold back any longer.  I dare you to blow up your dam!  You may never know how far-reaching the impact will be.

I'll be listening for the explosion. . . .

(As always, I invite you to make yourself at home in the Welcome and Why Unsmotherable Delight pages using the tabs above.)