Trickle and Torrent

Boredom is an easy thing to fall into. The line between living life and simply living is a thin one that is easily crossed. Often, crossing over into the land of mere existence begins in assenting to the patterns and routines that we all must navigate in this life. Over time, we begin to accept those patterns as inevitable. From there, it is a short descent into mediocrity. Another word for this mediocrity is shallowness.

Lately I’ve been feeling very shallow. Patterns that I have endeavored to shape have ended up shaping me. Such revelation hasn’t come like a thunderbolt but rather in simple, minute observations. For instance, I haven’t really enjoyed a meal that I’ve eaten in over a month.

I have searched for the source of this discomfort and I have come to this diagnosis: I am lacking in the presence of God. Now I know theologically the presence of the Lord always surrounds and dwells in the heart of the believer but there is also a sense in which we allow the Spirit to work in our lives through living lives of righteousness and by keeping our senses trained to notice his whispers and appearances. My times in the word have lacked the affectation and potency of the past. Like a hike through the desert, life has left my body alive but thirsty.

As I drove through the fields of southern Ohio recently a severe storm, with its dark and threatening thunderheads chased me. I couldn’t resist the temptation to roll down the window and feel the humid air upon my arms burgeoning with elemental fierceness. The clouds broke unleashing a torrent of water. Wave after wave broke upon my car as if I were a ship caught in a nor’easter. In farm land such as this deluges such as this rapidly overwhelm the ability of the ground to absorb the rain. Flash floods are common and streams quickly over-run their banks. Trails become waterlogged. Fields transition into ponds.

There are times in our lives when the vibrancy of life dries up to a trickle. It happens subtly but its occurrence has dramatic effects. Our spirits languish and we fail to live the lives of righteousness that we were created for. More devastatingly, we can find ourselves not even looking for or expecting the power and presence of the Lord. Rather we grow increasingly content with lives of shallowness, what Thoreau called “lives of quiet desperation,” until the word of the Lord is neither experienced nor expected. We settle for a life of dehydration rather than seeking out the fullness of the Lord. And like physical dehydration, spiritual dehydration lessens the soul’s ability to weather the storms of life or even to enjoy the blessing of life at all.

The cure is simply but not easy. It is approached in confident uncertainty for we do not know where to look but live in the assurance that if we seek we will find. This is our course: like the explorers of old, to live comfortable, predictable lives of slow extinction or to set out confidently expecting to encounter the presence of the Lord behind every bush and tree; every stranger and friend. In every word we read we should be anticipating a Word from on high. Every prayer we pray should bristle with the energy of an oncoming storm for we know whom we seek is capably and willing to distribute not only life but lives of abundance.