Don't Forget the River

Yesterday I was reminded of the tattoo on the outside of my right forearm that says, Trust the River.  I don't see it that much...which is too bad, because it's one of my favorites.  Even the T-Rex standing in the river.

The meaning of Trust the River?  I heard a story from Michael Gungor,  he was at a really difficult place in his journey of faith.  He felt like he was clinging to a branch on the side of a huge, scary, dangerous, unpredictable river.  My words not his.  The branch is what he believed to be God.  Safety.  As long as he held tight he'd be fine.  But his grip failed.  And it wasn't until he was in the river that he realized that the river was God and the branch was his preconceived notions of what/who God was.  In reality God was the river....and it wasn't until he was in the river that he began to understand just how big God really is.

Trust the River.  It's ok to not know.  It's totally ok to have no understanding of how God works or who God even is.  It even says in the bible that we'd never be able to grasp the vastness.

Sometimes I'll come up an idea of how I think God is.  I could be right just as much as I could be wrong.  And nobody will ever know for sure.  There is one thing you do know for sure... Jesus said it himself.  “‘Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.’ This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ These two commands are pegs; everything in God’s Law and the Prophets hangs from them.” 

Loving God could be anything.  It could look totally different from one person to the next.  But notice the next part.  Jesus says it is EQUAL.  He does not say to master the first part and then do the second.  Love others as well as you love yourself.  That's pretty simple.  The love you show for yourself, you must also show for others.

What if we practiced that as Christians?  

Do you know it says not to fear around 365 times in the bible?  Yes...I did just go there.

What are we so afraid of?

I sincerely want to know from Christians who are in favor of an immigration ban, refugee from ANY country (that's what it was), or building a wall on our southern border.  What are you afraid of?  What are your concerns?  And in the grandiose River that is God, where does that fear land?