I’m reminded this week of some some things we can’t change no matter how much we try. We can’t make it rain, for instance. Three months of no moisture has been hard on us out here in farm country. A man could break an ankle from some of the cracks in the fields. We can stretch long irrigation pipes across the corn and run them night and day. But once the lake runs dry, we can’t manufacture any more water. No matter how many brilliant minds we put on it, we’ve never been able to make rain.
But God can. And He does. In His time and in His way, he sends it on the just and the unjust. I’m not sure which we are this week, but I’m certainly grateful to be a part.
Another thing we can’t do is take away someone else’s pain. (Even though good friends always try.) Doctor’s can relieve the physical assault with things like a needle full of steroids shot directly into the face just below your eye. (She says from recent ER experience.) But no one can actually lift the pain away from the screaming nerve. They can only block it temporarily. In the same way, we can’t fully lift one another’s grief over loss, fear over cancer, or suffering from setbacks.
But God can. And He does. My friend, Dave, reminded me (from closed circuit t.v. Sunday school this morning, thank you Technology!) that there is a river that makes glad the city of God. It never runs dry. It never fails. And it carries all pain, suffering, fear, and sorrow away to the throne of God where it is washed away forever in joy unspeakable.
It comes from my favorite psalm, and if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll just go rest there a bit. Feel free to join me.
There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High.Psalm 46:4