A Word

Four weeks… two weeks it has been since this all started and it’s still there. I’ve been going about my business for four weeks and this word lingers in my mind, surprising me in my prayers, haunting me in worship, and it demands that I prepare.

“FLOOD.”

Do you know it?

I feel as if we’ve somehow in speaking “Christianese” with it we’ve tamed it… but I’d like to remind us that it’s not meant to be a comforting word! It is not a slow movement of water gently rolling over the hills, reminding us of butterflies and pretty fish… it is the definition of devastation in the unstoppable total form and I cannot escape this word that has come at me from all sides. A storm is coming… rains, quakes, flashes of light and electricity in the air… the Holy Spirit has a work to do and nothing is going to stand in His way. I don’t know if we stop to think of the words we sing and pray so often… “flood this land,” “rain down,” “pour out your Spirit,” etc… do we realize that we are asking God to devastate and RUIN these lives? I see two accounts of “flood” in Scripture (Genesis 6, Luke 6). I’m not about to get into an exegetical argument of any kind, I simply have one observation to make- the things that floods destroyed in each of these accounts are the things that were not of God. Are we ready to pray that prayer? “Lord, destroy in my life every thing that is not of You”- because ready or not, that’s what we’ve been asking for, and I believe the Lord has heard! Do we realize that in asking God to bring us closer to Him we are asking Him to purge us of everything that CANNOT be in His holy presence (not that He chooses what is bad and what is good and there are excused things and pardoned refuse, but that by HIS NATURE it CANNOT exist near Him)? We have uttered some dangerous prayers in these past days, will be bless God when He works them or will we stand and question His cleansing work?

Floods bring messes… mud, silt, river waste, all that nasty stuff we’ve dumped into it for so long- all of it comes rushing right up into plain sight when that water rises…

Do you follow?

This is going to be messy, yet with the flood comes such a new opportunity. Spiritually speaking, all that remains is what has been anchored in something solid- the foundation that cannot be anything else (1 Corinthians 3:11), Jesus Christ. So I suppose this small note is meant as both an encouragement and a warning- let us continue to pray for the flood, but let us also expect and not despise the WORK of the flood- the cleansing and the removal of what cannot stand up to the movement of the Spirit/the presence of God. Let us look solely to the author and perfecter of our faith and seek His face only, yes, a flood is coming, and no boat is going to save us- this time we learn how to walk on water.

What think you? Are you ready?