Thank you, Kathleen, for your comment on yesterday’s post. It’s the perfect segue to today! In a way, this is Part II.

I had a great conversation late yesterday with an old childhood friend, Chip Fisher, older brother of my good friend, Shack. (Those of you who do not know the Fisher family … our closest friends growing up … may want to know that the five children are named Rick, Chip, Shack, Skeet, and Tup. Well, except for Rick, the others have “real” names but no one has ever used them.) Anyway, Chip recently changed course from being senior pastor of a church to being a chaplain. A long time ago, he changed course from being a Catholic to a Protestant. And, from being the nation’s #1 16 year old tennis player and NCAA champion at Stanford to joining the ministry.

I, too, have changed course. If you had asked me when I was 17 or 18 what my future would have been like, I might have said something like, “I won’t live to see it because I’ll be killed for standing up for something I believe in.” I won’t bore you with the major course corrections but I count at least five or six. And, these are the big ones.

Or, are they really major course corrections?

One of the benefits of growing old (well, I guess I’m not really THAT old!), is the gaining of perspective. History, of course, is all about perspective and we can see all sorts of things that are not available to us during the particular moment or period. Perspective tends to be a good thing, although greatly under appreciated.

Which brings us to the River. Kathleen, a friend and saint (she really will not like that second descriptor but some who know her well will concur), woke up with the call to head down to the river for living water. As a fellow follower of Jesus, I know this is a reference to Jesus’ call to himself, as the living water, the life-giving sustenance. But, the call to the river has another dimension to it besides that. It is the call to leave the solid ground at a particular place and to embark on a journey. And, that’s something we don’t want to misunderstand.

Whatever our life-giving sustenance is … and that’s something I’ve been sharing these past few weeks and I hope those of you reading this are joining me in that discernment … we have a choice. I guess this is another Door A/Door B thing.

Door A says “This is my life. This is what there is. Let me make the most of it. I hope I’m basically a good person in the process and leave the world having contributed something of consequence.” In my mind, Door A is a choice to see life as basically coming to grips with circumstances and doing one’s best to manage them. There’s not necessarily a direction. Perhaps it includes building up defenses to change and there’s an adversity to taking risks. Door A involves protection and security.

Door B says, “I know there’s something more and in order to discover and experience that something more, I need to launch myself out there. Leave comfort and security behind and take a risk.”

Of course, at various points in our lives, we may find we choose going through one door or the other.

It will come as no surprise that I’d like to concentrate on Door B. Because this is where it gets interesting.

As Diane shared in our early time together this morning, many of us view the river bank as solid ground and fret about getting in that current, not exactly sure where it’s leading. But, she continued, that solid ground is a fiction. In fact, it’s not. We frequently build our security and defenses on sand, not rock. She makes a major point on this and calls our attention to the posture of the elder brother in the parable of the prodigal. But, having said that, let’s assume that we’re ready to leave the safety of the river bank and enter onto the river in a canoe. I pick a canoe because it is a balance between being at the mercy of the current, while also requiring effort in the form of mind, muscles and paddles (propulsion and steering).

But, we need to pause for a moment. It’s not that easy. I’ll argue that we’re actually at the confluence of a number of rivers, all flowing outwards from the bank where we stand. That is, if we’re Door B people. So, this is our second choice. Which river? How do we choose? And, how significant is our choice?

It all comes back to those things presented in an earlier post. What do we value the most? From where do we draw our meaning? What are our priorities? For instance, if we value Knowledge over everything else (or its close cousin, Wisdom), then we will choose a river which feeds our heads and we can call it Intellect. If we value Wealth Accumulation over everything else, we will choose a river named Prosperity. If we value Service to Others above all else, we may choose a river named Works. If we choose our Job or our Children above all else, we will probably choose a river named Idolatry. Now, the headwaters of any of these rivers may not look particularly different than any of the others. In fact, a few miles down each stream may display similar flora and fauna. But, I believe a great distance down any one as opposed to another, will display significant differences. I should know.

Here is where they are the same. All rivers in this life present beautiful vistas and moments and all present terrible challenges. For those of us fortunate enough to be born into the West in this age, we have the wherewithal to feel things like happiness or the pride in accomplishment on a regular basis. Most of us do not suffer regular deprivations of life’s basic necessities and most of us are not in imminent danger of violent attack on us or our loved ones. So, to a great degree, each river will bring us moments when we say, this is good. Unfortunately, each river will also bring moments of grief, sorrow and pain. Try as we might, each river will always present these challenges. And, on occasion, most of us will feel those challenges as enormous burdens. For some, we might try to postpone the moments as we age but few escape an experience of deep suffering.

But, let’s move beyond that and get back to how to choose and, eventually, can we pick a different one as hard as that may seem?

Is there anything wrong with intellect or prosperity or service or focus on job or children? I certainly don’t believe so. But, all can be traps. Big traps. When the neon sign at the headwaters of that river beckons in bright lights and makes great promises, we believe that at journey’s end we will be fulfilled. As in, really fulfilled.

Probably the greatest intellect I’ve ever known personally in more than a cursory way is a good example. His knowledge sometime defied my comprehension. Literature, the Arts, Music, History. His IQ was probably off the charts. He was also a gifted teacher and professor whose students lapped up his knowledge as disciples at the feet of the master. I was not immune to that as I lived with him for awhile as a young man. While he cared and, I think, loved, he was often distant and prone to reclusiveness. Ultimately, he is a widowed man with thirty years of broken relationships with his two sons. He is 95 and has been alone, by his choice, for many years. No friends or family to speak of. His is one of the saddest endings of any life I can imagine.

When Jesus talked about a heaven being as unavailable to a rich man as it is difficult for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, he wasn’t blasting the rich. In fact, he counted among his disciples and followers some wealthy landowners and successful tradespeople. No, his was a warning to all of us. In fact heaven (which he said … and this is REALLY important … has come to earth and the thing he called the Kingdom of God is available right now) is impossible when our top priority is these things listed above. When we are suckered into choosing one of those rivers mentioned, we trust our salvation (delivery from the hollowness of life) to something that lacks true fulfillment.

In fact, there is a river that offers prosperity of a kind that is maybe not what the world would term prosperous. Do we not know people of very modest means who lack for nothing and seem to exhibit joy? That river offers incomparable knowledge. It’s a knowledge that may be built on the giants of intellect, the great artists, the sages, our wise mentors but knowledge is a byproduct of the river, not its destination. There is a river that deeply values our need to work, be creative, and produce. There is a river that recognizes that we are not alone and that others need our help in so many ways and we should really pay attention to that. There is a river that teaches us to deeply love others, especially our spouses and children. There is a river that says we are infinitely valuable as distinct beings yet need to place others before self.

To paraphrase C.S. Lewis in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, this river is not safe but it’s good.

No, it’s not safe. And, it’s not easy. Getting in takes a whole heck of a lot of trust. Trust because its promise is not the promise we hear from the neon and compelling signs over the other rivers. Its promise is different. In fact, different from any other promise. Like the others, it promises a destination that seems inviting to many on its surface. But, it would be a mistake to take that at face value. Because unlike material wealth, a successful job, a keen mind, a devoted spouse or children, this destination is clouded in mist and we hardly know it.

Somehow, we get in the canoe. Sitting in the stern, we paddle out into the current, ready to begin the journey. Our paddle acts as our decision-maker that governs speed and direction. It is artificial propulsion and rudder. It is hard to submit to the current when it is rapid. It is hard to paddle for lengthy times when the river barely meanders. We face rapids, underwater obstructions, overhanging trees and even threatening people on the shore that shout at us that we’re off course. “This is the wrong river! What are you doing? Do you really believe in this? Come on. Get back to one of those other rivers. You know, the important ones!”

There are real dangers. Class 6 rapids. How do I survive those? Can I just go over? Can I find the strength to portage the canoe and my supplies around it?

And, how do I navigate? Am I alone on this? No guide? How do I read the signs? Of course, this river has many little offshoots. Some even aren’t little. How do I know which fork to take? For goodness sakes, I stepped off the bank on the basis of a promise. A different promise than all of the other promises. This distant land that is drawing me closer still makes me feel lost a lot of the time. Yes, it seems that the beauty is increasing as I travel. The moments more fulfilling. The rapids that used to frighten me feel a bit less threatening. There are times my heart seems to burst with a joy I never before thought possible. I don’t want that to end. But it does and the next Class 6 beckons. I face it with just that much more confidence than the last time. Less fear and anxiety. How does this happen and what can I expect?

My river has a sign over it that says, Destination: Eternal Life in the Presence of Our Loving God.

And my guide, of course, is Jesus. He is crystal clear on who God is, who he is and who we are. He is crystal clear on God’s nature and character and his plan for us. He paints a picture of our destination in many, many ways. We just have to have eyes to see and ears to hear.

The river has another sign, just slightly downstream from the first one. This second one is the name of the river itself. It actually isn’t just the name. It is the river. The river’s name is Jesus.

As Kathleen said at the outset, this river is alive. It’s the only river that is actually living. It is the giver and sustainer of life. In that, it contains the map and all of the resources we need to manage the journey. All of them. In fact, the journey is not possible without those resources.

And, here’s the thing. If I look back upstream, to consider how I’ve changed during this journey, there is no way I would reverse course. The proof is in the moment. Despite a present hardship, trust has replaced fear and anxiety. Maybe not perfectly but monumentally so. Those voices don’t resonate. Their hold is fleeting. The river IS alive and it breathes life into me.

We have one last topic to cover. And, that’s the issue of what to do if we find out we’ve been sold a bill of goods. That our life is not as fulfilling as we’d hoped. That we headed down a certain river and see that it might have been better had we been born with different talents or had not been drawn so strongly to certain promises. What do we do if we find ourselves at a point in life when we think we’ve missed out. We regret decisions or the way things are turning out. But, we think it’s too late to change. We’re too far down this particular river or we’re just really afraid of stepping off the bank.

Well, here’s the good news. Here’s the Gospel (literally, Good News). There’s this amazing and miraculous force called Grace. And, Grace is like a cosmic worm hole that straddles galaxies, a supernatural bridge that spans unimaginably large spaces. It transports us from one river to another that aren’t just a few miles apart (although it can do that) but to one in another country altogether. And, that grace is available at any time. Any time at all. It’s free. It covers all regrets. All choices. It offers transformation now and forevermore. All we need to do is ask. I’m proof.

Lord, thank you for grace. Thank you for showing me the river, complete with a shiny canoe that is a counterpoint to my somewhat battered body. Thank you for living water that is my guide and companion. Thank you for the adventures on the way and how you are teaching me to be more like the person you designed me to be. Thank you, that you never lose faith in me. While I can’t see the destination with the crystal clarity that I eventually will, I can see it well enough. It is glorious, just as moments in some of my days are glorious and evidence that heaven has broken through to this earth. I love you. Amen.