The Stream and Life

I love to hear the rushing and gurgling of water as it ripples over the rocks of a stream.
In the springtime the streams are swollen with water and life is starting to show forth out of the brown earth around.
In the summer, rains swell the stream with water, brimming and flowing, pulsing with current.

There are two streams, one I see is clear and sparkling, making music over the rocks and around the logs.

Another stream is muddy with water rushing onward, flowing over any obstacle that may be in its path, making music.

Music.  Both streams.

Isn't that sometimes life?  Our stream may be flowing - clear and musical.  Life may make sense and we sing.  It's easy to sing a song of praise and say God is good.

But sometimes, and it seems more times than not, our stream is muddy and life doesn't make sense.  Life's perplexities and questions remain unclear and muddled.  Our prayers seem to go unheeded.  Relationships are muddied and hard.  Jobs may not go as planned.

Can we still choose song?  Can we still choose praise?  Can we still say God is good?

I am reading a book by Jennifer Rothschild - God is Just Not Fair.  Wow.  She says some powerful truths and speaks from her personal journey of becoming blind as a teenager and grapples with the hard questions, bringing them before her Heavenly Father.
Go to jenniferrothschild.com or better yet, purchase a copy of her book, so you can digest and re-digest the truths she shares.
Her life's story is a musical.  Her life's story is hard.

What do we do when our stream is muddied??

We can either flow onward, choosing to stay alive or become a pool, dammed by the rocks and most likely become stagnant and hard.

Common sense is not faith, and faith is not common sense; they stand in the relation of the natural and the spiritual.  Can you trust Jesus Christ where your common sense cannot trust Him?  - Oswald Chambers

Like waters in the muddy stream, we can still make music as we flow onward; unless we get stuck in corner and become stagnant waters.
Hard is not wasted when we learn to bring our hard to God, our Heavenly Father.

Song comes when we choose to trust the Hand and Heart of our Father.  It's not a song we force to sing or melody that we labour to produce; but it FLOWS... ever onward and only because we choose to go forward with our Father.  He produces the song through His grace and love and redemption of our hearts.

Habakkuk 3:17-18  "Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, YET I will rejoice IN THE LORD, I will be joyful IN GOD MY SAVIOUR."

In the stream, the song is loudest and most musical when there are rocks or waterfalls...
It's peaceful and tranquil when there are no obstacles...

We need both in life...   moments where we can sit and hearts take a deep breath... calming, rejuvinating... restoring...
and the rocks and mud, they keep us humble, dependent; reminding us of our need of God as we move with Him.

And it seems, in those hard moments, when we choose to stay with God, trusting His heart is good towards us; our song is the truest.
It's melody purest when we believe His Greater Truth in the muddied waters of life.

Let God make your life His musical masterpiece; turning beauty and song out of the joy and sorrow of your story.