Rivers, Not Lakes

There’s a small lake in our village with a path around it and an island in the middle where a pair of swans make their nest every year. When the cygnets are born, they’re grey and fluffy and clumsy until they grow up and slowly become majestic. Eventually they all fly away and I don’t know where they go. Then every year one couple returns and there’s a new nest and eventually new cygnets.

The cygnets and ducklings and baby coots (cooties?) on the lake make the place a lot nicer to visit, because there are certain times of the year when the water isn’t much of an attraction on its own. It has the typical problem that most small lakes have: it tends to grow green and manky with pondweed and algae and such, especially in the summer. Some summers are worse than others, but even on a good year (like this one) there are still places where the weeds are thick enough that the little cooties can walk around on them instead of swimming.

One day while I was walking there I met a man who told me that the lake weeds wouldn’t grow as well if the water in the lake had a more consistent flow, in and out. He said the conditions in our lake are good for algae and weeds, because once the water comes in it mostly just sits, barely moving at all. Meanwhile, we have streams nearby that flow constantly and stay quite clear.

As I walked home, I thought about what the man said and it reminded me of what Jesus said in John 7:37-38: “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”

Jesus compared those who believe in him to rivers, not lakes. He said that living water would “flow from within them”, not merely “flow into them”. There is an inflow, of course—“come to me and drink” he says—but the satisfaction of our thirst for life in Jesus is only the beginning. The life Jesus gives is not something we just sip on here and there whenever we’re feeling a bit low, a bit thirsty, a bit unsatisfied. It’s not just some runoff rain that collects in our souls and sits there quietly doing nothing. If we try to live that way, we’ll probably end up with lives that look like the lake looks in the summer—growing over with manky selfish prideweeds.

No thank you. “Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” The life that God gives is not meant to be contained, like a lake. It is not measured out carefully to be just enough to make us comfortable or keep us functioning. It is not measured at all—it is a flow that never stops. Have you seen what a river can do? It can remake a landscape entirely. It can turn a wasteland into a well-watered garden where life grows and thrives. And so it is with the life that Jesus gives to those who believe in him. He remakes the landscape of our hearts entirely as the river flows in—and then the river flows on, always moving outward beyond us, beyond our needs, beyond our boundaries, out to the world and the people around us, always looking for more thirst to quench. We come to Jesus thirsty and dying for life. We come for a drink, and end up becoming “rivers of living water” because you can’t contain this living water in a cup. It’s more than we needed. More than we expected. Much more! And that’s the point—it’s not just for us.

“Freely you have received; freely give.” – Matthew 10:8