St. Croix River

Yesterday I preached at Gary Bailey’s memorial service and I was struck with his love of rivers.  He grew up on the Mississippi River, went to school in Winona, MN and often recreated  on the St. Croix.  His daughter remembered a shared St. Croix canoe trip in the rain.   A friend told a story about camping on a St. Croix Island and how Gary tried to share a sleeping bag with him (by mistake!).  Rivers flowed through Gary’s life.

The psalmist writes, there is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High (Psalm 46:4).  God delights in rivers and the scripture is full of river images, from the Garden of Eden in Genesis to the river of life in Revelation 22.  I often visualize God’s grace and love as a river that flows all around us.  As a result rivers have flowed into my prayer life.

 My prayer has become, “Lord, lead me in your river of life.  Teach me to trust in your stream of grace and to work towards what you are doing.  I don’t want to fight your current, but rather flow with you.”  The Lord’s Prayer states, “your kingdom come, your will be done,” which means that I want to align my will and my activities with God’s will and activities.  Prayer is getting into God’s flow.  

Have you ever experience God’s grace flowing in your prayers?  Or had times of drought?