Life Is a River

METAPHORS FOR LIFE are incredibly influential—at the personal level. They steer the deployment of our values and belief systems. Many metaphors will derail our lives; the image of a river, however, will provide a good path to a wise life.

***

Life is a river,

Surprisingly deep and wide,

And only with God,

Can we negotiate the tide.

Life is a river,

Flowing with force,

And we are the boats,

Negotiating the course.

Life is a river,

Of varying levels,

Both and between,

It fascinates and dishevels.

Life is a river,

Dense with abundant matter,

Enshrouded as a mystery,

Thoughts of ours to scatter.

Life is a river,

Which sometimes runs dry,

Parched is the spirit,

When all of life is awry.

Life is a river,

That occasionally freezes over,

Infinite periods of stillness,

Until a soul-owned supernova.

Life is a river,

From time to time flooded,

Space and time aquiver,

Until all its creeks are blooded.

Life is a river,

It shallows and slows with age,

Maturing with wisdom,

Growing at every stage.

Life is a river,

Sometimes rocky, sometimes smooth,

When we take it patiently,

The problems we defuse.

Life is a river,

About which we can enjoy and reflect,

Standing such is peace,

Anxiousness we deflect.

Life is a river,

It ranges from land to sea,

Float upon it like a journey,

Hopefully we can agree.

Life is a river,

Fashioned in the earth,

Eternal life is ours,

Only by Divine rebirth.

***

Myriad Images of the River Metaphor

There are limitless positive images surrounding the river metaphor to assist us functioning as wise human beings. The twelve above merely hone in on the fact that rivers reflect the natural majesty of the Lord in the embodiment of creation.

Each of these images have described a feature of rivers that is infinite in itself—and that is life; a thoroughly superabundant concept. From the finite beauty of atoms and molecules, to the exquisite machinery of the humble cell, to the relative infinity of galaxies and the cosmos—rivers encapsulate the fullness of broader creation.

Whether our lives are, of a sense, calm or they reflect buoyancy or turbulence, there is little doubt that the metaphor of a river provides meaning that lasts.

***

We may search all our lives for the right ideology to base our lives upon; many ideas filter through our hearts, and we test these with our minds, applying them to action. But, the river is a sounder premise. It’s as big as life and bigger than many insufficient metaphors.

Life is a river, deep and wide; something so captivating, it cannot be denied.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

Respecting the Flow of the River of Life

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.” ~Reinhold Niebuhr, The Serenity Prayer.

Life is a flow not unlike a river. Whether we’re going with the flow or against it determines the direction and success of our lives.

There are times for both; to go with the flow by accepting what appears unchangeable or to go against the flow with the courage to co-opt change. To the value of how much we get these two right is the measure of our wisdom.

This leads us to pray, for prayer is the language of intercession to God in the seeking of the holy will.

Prayer – Looking for Guidance

The wisdom of choosing the appropriate time for going with or against the flow is as easy as disconnecting emotive strains whilst having context wired to reason.

Many prayers are said but just as many, and more, are thought of. This is the humble certitude to weigh matters in humility, for that’s certainly God tipping wisdom in through us.

Prayer is not just eyes closed and hands together knelt on the floor.

It is the issuance of the Spirit at the request of the person seeking help. And the Spirit helps by informing, goading and restraining.

For or Against? – Choice, Then Deployment

Inspired lives are lived in the lap of wise decisions—whether with the flow or against.

The quality of those decisions is dependent on the Spirit-sense that the person has guiding the moment one way or the other. Then comes the actual deployment of the decision, for there’s no point going for or against if a lack of care or discretion despoils a good decision.

Deployment can’t be understated, and therefore neither can humility. Humility never gets carried away with itself.

True Serenity

The Serenity Prayer can indicate that when we get decisions right regarding acceptance and courage—for or against the flow—serenity is the felt result. Serenity isn’t just the forerunner for accepting things we cannot change—it’s also a product of wisdom.

Serenity is wisdom’s reward for the effective life. Serenity is also confidence for more of the same. Similarly, faith is vindicated by accepting or challenging the appropriate circumstances.

Perhaps the best thing about true serenity, the way it functions via this prayer, is it’s kept simple.

For or against the flow of life is best begun simple—life has a way of being complicated enough.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

Living Hopefully by P.U.R.P.O.S.E.

HOPE IS IMPOSSIBLE without purpose or, better put, we only come close to realising our God-given potential when we live life with purpose. This is easily illustrated. Depressive symptoms, for a whole range of reasons, manifest themselves in the evaporation of purpose, meaning, and therefore hope.

Here is a simple acronym to help focus on our purpose:

1. PAST – what’s our life been telling us so far? So many of us are drawn into moments of guilt, resentment, fear, materialistic envy, or the need for approval. Our pasts, and the people we’ve become, have set up default patterns of thinking and these run cross-grain to, and distract us from, our true purpose. First, we must analyse and reconcile our pasts.

2. UNKNOWNS – can only, in the ongoing reality of things, be revealed by God. These unknowns often present as barriers. Yet, they needn’t hinder us. There will be many things about life that we will not understand. We just simply let them be. In acceptance is patient wisdom.

3. REFLECTION – as a key step toward discovering our purpose. This is where the fun begins; seriously. Who of us, and how often, have taken time out to reflect over God’s purposes for our lives? These are nothing lofty or bold; they are probably simple and circumspect. The gorgeousness of reflection is it’s time alone with God.

4. PLANNING – we cannot live a purpose-fulfilled life without planning it. As human beings we have a rich desire to be in control. Planning is that control—a God-anointed control. In other words, God wants us to, indeed insists that we, take this sort of control. This is the critical mid-step between reflecting over our purpose and achieving it. Like reflection, we never rush the planning process.

5. OBSERVATION – every good plan is checked; we need to reinforce the veracity of the plan. We can only do this when we stand back and observe the plan in the context of our entire lives—our relationships, present vocational situations, aspirations, and capabilities.

6. SIMPLICITY – all plans need checkpoints. After we’ve observed the logistics of our plan we need to check it for its achievability. Only simple plans are achievable, and in simplicity is power.

7. EXECUTION – all the planning in the world won’t bring about change. We must have the tenacity to bring about the plan’s fulfilment, one day at a time. As we do this we continue to reflect and plan changes via observation and checks against the wisdom of simplicity. It’s vital our purpose is maintained and sustained.

***

Purpose provides meaning and hope. How better than analyse and reconcile our Pasts, acknowledge the Unknowns, Reflect and Plan, Observe life, Simplify the plan, and then Execute it. Living hopefully is simply being deliberate and intentional. The rest of life sorts itself out.

Even little things, done purposefully well, engender a firm inner confidence.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

Good News for the Broken

A PREREQUISITE FOR the saved life is this: there is the solemn achievement of recognition for the state of brokenness; one life ends and a new one must begin.

Eternal beauty remains in the knowledge that brokenness is a vast degree of success in the spirituality of God. If Moses, David, Elijah and Jesus were all blessed in their brokenness so, in fact, are we.

Reflect over this short stanza:

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If you were once broken,

But now find yourself healed,

A new purpose is spoken,

Life’s essence—revealed.

***

This is a mystery, but we can be so thankful for it.

Yet, the proudly irredeemable don’t need a saviour. They have life all mapped out and self-sufficiency is their god. They’re deceived.

Not with those who read this, however. (Why else would we read something titled, Good News for the Broken?)

The true good news is: upon brokenness the gift of life is but a whiff away.

The real success stories of this life are admittedly and wantonly broken people; not that they remain there in contempt of God, yet they fling those darts of condemnation back where they came from. Those darts have no place in the residence of God.

A New Purpose Spoken

We only need to be redeemed once to understand, and therefore believe, there is a Higher Power working over our lives, uniquely interested in us as persons.

God uses these experiences to speak the idea of revelation into our lives.

Only will we know what the Spirit will utter into our spirits. And if our new purpose isn’t clear, gleaming with clarity, our purpose is to find that purpose. This is done in the joy of the Lord; a newly fashioned hope indwells.

Life’s Essence Revealed

Such an obvious truth in life is easy to miss. In fact, we are all bound to forget this at one time or another.

Life’s essence is revealed in the fact that life is not really about us at all—a truth made real to me first via Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life (2002) book. When God has broken down the door and walked into our hearts, we learn this. There is so much more to life than our petty ‘needs’ and requirements. Indeed, God always provides what we need anyway and the moment our perspective widens we see for real this “spacious, free life.” (Romans 8:6 [Msg])

Brokenness is a prerequisite for the revelation of life’s essence.

It is good news to be broken—if, through that, we meet God.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

Purpose in the Opposite Direction

If we’re inwardly frustrated we potentially run cross-grain to our purpose. Our strength is not in popularity nor satisfaction nor gross introspection regarding our achievements. These are ways to weakness. This is why so:

1. Popularity is short-lived. Yet, we all fall for it. God wants to remind us our purpose is in the opposite direction.

2. Satisfaction keeps us happy for a while. Then we develop a habit for it. God will satisfy us if we seek our God-appointed and God-anointed purpose, without grappling for our own satisfaction. The best thing: there is no effort but obedience.

3. Gross introspection—not a healthy prayerful reflection—but particularly as it presents in reflection regarding achievements—generates pride, not humility. Our purpose is in the opposite direction.

Strength comes proportionate to our shunning the search for popularity and inner satisfaction, and gross introspection regarding our achievements. God’s purpose, and therefore blessing, is in the opposite direction.

Running toward the narrow gate, resplendent in God’s will, is something we need to continually remind ourselves of.

The more we look at our lives, the more we find, our purpose is in the opposite direction to that which we normally look. Blessed are we when we can see counter-intuitively.

Many times our purpose is closer than we think; yet, we’re probably not intuitively “popular,” or “satisfied,” or comfortable with our “achievements” there. But, this is where God’s placed us. Our purpose is to be happy where we are as we strive, simultaneously, to become the person God’s purposed us to be.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

The Unrequited Nature of Loss

“At the temple, there is a poem called ‘Loss’ carved into the stone. It has three words, but the poet has scratched them out. You cannot read Loss, only feel it.” ~Sayuri Narration, Memoirs of a Geisha (2005).

The deepest mystery of life is that loss is woven into its innermost fabric; we’re touched never more sincerely than at the time of visceral pain.

There is an unrequited nature in loss that, despite our search, reveals itself just as mysterious and enigmatic at the last as it was at the first. Yet, we emerge.

The Need to Search Despite Meaninglessness

This incomprehensible nature doesn’t stop us searching, however. Indeed, we are indebted to search and to reveal the meaning of such meaninglessness. If we didn’t search we would fall into a hole, swallowed by the abyss of seeming tranquillity that, ironically, numbs us from healing.

This further convolutes the mystery.

What must be searched, yet cannot be reconciled, may seem bombastically callous on the part of a caring God. Still, the devil is behind that lie!

The need to search despite the meaninglessness in loss is not so much about discovery, or even self-discovery, but it’s the process through to renewal—the caterpillar within becoming a butterfly.

Coming To Accept Newness

Truth be told, we undergo many losses and many transformations through life. This occurs whether we like it or not.

To negate the reality of the coming butterfly, to remain a caterpillar, is to reverse an indelible trend—such a wish, entrapped of fearful desire, cannot be blessed. It is, instead, cursed to a shrivelling death of a life enshrined in customised portrayals of denial, anger, depression, and bargaining; even cycling through these without end.

To accept newness, but never prematurely, we necessarily and willingly relinquish what we have, or had—the latter recognising what was once ours is now gone, forever.

No Acceptance Without Realisation

In another great twist, loss cannot ultimately be accepted without a full realisation that life is now changed and cannot be changed back.

What is now ever different cannot get back what it never had.

Loss is like setting out on a journey, and as we finally find our way to the destination, we recognise the origin no more—it has vanished or become something irrevocably different.

To accept the new identity—to feel home ‘there’—we must renounce important facets of the old. This cannot be anything but a process, for our humanity respects with awe the construction and being of our developed identity.

Adjusting to loss—a non-reciprocating phenomenon—involves mystery. No one can tell us how to do it. There is no formula that can be followed. But, it is a search, and that search will be found fruitful, somehow, if one does not give up.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

Getting THIS Day Right

Suppose you have a goal that seems forever out of reach. The vision of it achieved is perfectly motivating but you’ve failed so many times on embarking you’ve lost faith you’ll ever do it (again). You’re not alone. And, in fact, you’re only one day from success.

The fact of the matter is more people achieve their goals using a one-day-at-a-time approach than we might suppose. Other than the Firm Foundation—God—it’s the strength behind the 12-Step Program.

Just One Day

Just one day is all it takes,

Putting paid—somewhat—to a life of mistakes,

Instead we stand to simply achieve,

Now, for this moment, we must believe.

***

The one-day-at-a-time approach is so simple, and yet powerful, there is a ninety-nine percent chance that everyone will miss the miracle in it before they give it a fair chance in the application.

The miracle can only be experienced. Therefore it must be applied.

We get one day right and, before we pat ourselves on the back too much, we get ready for the next ‘one day’ allotment of time. We get just one day; we get it right; then, we start again.

What might sound depressing, so far as never looking forward more than one day, is actually far from it, in the living of it. It’s a relative freedom to only have one day to conquer.

Breaking One Day Down Even Further

Like some cities over the earth, those that have all their seasons in the one day, we too can have moods resembling the warmth of joy at summer, loss in autumn, disconsolation in winter, and fresh hopefulness in spring. Yes, all in one day.

It’s easy to forget, through these seasons that arrange themselves without warning, that God underpins all of it—the Underwriter of our hope is always there.

Getting this day right requires the reordering of sequential moments such that the low ones don’t carrier us over the precipice into an abyss in one moment of deception.

One-day-at-a-time is successfully deployed when we live life one moment at a time, patiently bearing each moment, warding against tiredness, resolving indecision and frustration, and watchful for complacent variance in our mental approach.

God’s There With Us

This is something we daren’t forget. When things go awry, we go with God, retreating into our prayer closets so the Lord can sort us out. Realistically, these moments may last only minutes or an hour, tops. But our response is critical. Weakening is to depart from God, whilst burrowing into prayer is drawing into Strength.

Let’s never forget, God is there as promised through every living moment.

As we get this day right we are reminded that achieving our goals, one-day-at-a-time, is easily achievable if we stay the day in simple principles devised in God’s inimitable strength.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

Being Strengthened Within

On one of the Two Foundations, Jesus said: “I will show you what someone is like who comes to me, hears my words, and acts on them.” ~Luke 6:47 (NRSV).

Certain portals in life we come to rely on. They give us strength and a song. From there we go out into our lives and live peaceably enough with ourselves to do what we need to do. We have enough for the day, or at least for the hour.

These portals are not necessarily the source of our spirituality—for instance, faith in Jesus Christ. They are instead where we go, by location or rationale or circumstance, to receive the moment’s strength.

The state of being, or having been, strengthened within, is the spiritual solidarity that only we, as individual persons, can define for ourselves.

A Study of Spiritual Solidarity

It would be no good if we were to be strengthened within via a dodgy portal resonating from an untrue source. That could only prove unsustainable.

There are many examples of things in this life that we place our trust in that provide little or no cogent strength. They might appear to strengthen us within, but really they weaken us—take, for instance, food or other substances, a reliance on others for our happiness, our work status or achievements, or our health, wealth or good looks. None of these may be relied upon, though we still ought to be thankful for them.

Precious few things provide spiritual solidarity—the inner strength within.

The ones that do, however, have the value of gold and beyond. Their worth is incalculable. Many people who detect the spiritual gap within search their whole lives and may still not find it. Spiritual solidarity may only be found at alignment with our feet as they plant on the welcome mat of truth.

Truth can be seen as a fascinating quality: it’s true over the process of time and in general terms with everybody. It’s consistently found true. It will ensure our spirituality has solidarity about it. Otherwise, there is no strength.

Truth and Foundations

Until now we’ve dealt with precious little regarding foundations—the cornerstone of life. Spiritual solidarity, and the fact of being strengthened within, both intimate and elucidate the fact—foundations ‘found’ our sound spiritual standing, but only in truth.

Jesus outlines the plainest truth about the two foundations: if we hear well, and we obey what we hear by doing it, we stand to be strengthened within. We will have spiritual solidarity as in a building with its own foundational solidarity.

Being strengthened within is our daily, hour by hour, objective. From here we go out into our world. We can serve God commensurate only with the strength that the Lord gives. That strength’s only currency is truth and we have strength simply for one day at a time.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

Authenticity and Emptiness – Two Great Truths

One we have whether we like it or not; the other is the great enforcer that protects us. Emptiness we have in abundance and without authenticity we have no recourse to joy.

Two great truths reside in this: emptiness is inherent to the human condition and authenticity is the great escape.

Symptoms and Signs of Emptiness

If ever we feel empty, and it’s granted we will, there are evidentiary proofs that command a hearing.

The signs and symptoms revealing us spiritually disconsolate and perhaps numb vary from person to person. Some of us seek solace in friends, via interaction, to skirt being alone. Others need to be alone to process their emptiness. Others again distract themselves; anything but boredom! Still again, many others make comparisons, and envy breeds silently within the spirits of all of us if left untethered.

Whatever the signs and symptoms—those that others see or only we feel—isn’t really important. What is truly important, however, is how we manage to authentically challenge ourselves in our emptiness.

People vary in the experience and manifestation of emptiness. One thing is clear: no one is beyond it.

The Great Combatant

Being or becoming authentic in our emptiness is neither beating it nor denying it. It’s just a matter of sitting with it; becoming perfectly comfortable that feeling empty is okay.

This is why it’s a great combatant. What doesn’t need to fight, and merely accepts, is bigger and stronger and more powerful and more mature to boot. Authenticity is the courage to ‘be’ without competition encroaching; without temptations to comparison; without feelings of inferiority. Authenticity is stillness, as it is, happy and content.

What doesn’t need to compete or compare or feel inferior is sound, ideally confident, and realistic, even in the midst of inner turmoil for reasons known or for no reason at all.

Friends, Not Foes

Authenticity and emptiness coexist because the former is friend to all, whilst the latter needs all the friends it can get. Of course they go together!

As accompaniments for each other the emptiness within one person is harmonised and they become better for others, too. Authentic people are nice to be around, especially when there is no veneer to cover their emptiness. They, therefore, give others permission to feel authentically empty as well.

As love will settle fear, making it stronger, so too will authenticity validate, and possibly even alleviate, feelings of emptiness. It massages our mood and opens the drapes of the soul to joy.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

"I Have To Live with Myself"

LIFE CAN SEEM a constant struggle. And, at times, it’s not a struggle with difficulty, but a difficulty with convenience—the way things have become. The name of this challenge is “compromise.” What may be good in relationships can make self-management difficult, if not impossible.

It may appear easy to overcome, certainly to others as they consider our lives, but compromise attaches itself with claws when our outlook is ease; or, it can occur when our lives are difficult because we want to fabricate some ease.

Whatever, compromise comes because our minds are at home with ease—otherwise known as the pleasure principle.

Ease: An Enemy of Self-Management and Freedom

The friend of self-management is self-discipline, and therefore the enemy is ease.

Not that ease is bad; it is excess ease that’s counter-productive. Good ease is rest—the divinely appointed and anointed lack of activity. The trouble is when convenience defines our world, and there’s little reason for self-discipline, we are likely to be sucked into excess ease.

This is the temptation before all of us—certainly Westerners. Even those far-from-well-off people have majority choice over ease versus self-discipline. Even abject paupers could be drawn into spiritual ease, which can produce, ironically, feelings of despair or complaint because of self-righteousness.

The great desire of the heart human is freedom. Ease takes us away from freedom, whilst self-discipline enables it.

Power for Life

Paradoxically, there’s more freedom in relinquishing ease and assuming control over ourselves than there is in completely letting our hair down.

As we exercise the self-management of self-discipline we understand the principle that we are the ones left with ourselves—we have to live with ourselves. That’s a problem nobody else has but us. Our decisions, at their core, affect us primarily. Besides collateral damage, where sometimes our family or friends are involved, our person is the one left with the results of our decisions and actions.

God is fairest in this: this life that is ours, is ours. Natural justice suggests the exercise of responsibility is blessed and irresponsibility is cursed.

What is power for life is a simple concept; one made only harder because of ease—as we give into it.

Enjoyment of life is about understanding this principle and applying it. God gives us complete control over our decisions regarding self-management. If we recognise we have to live with ourselves, and later could perhaps regret the decision, how will we decide?

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

The Right to Change Our Minds

Perceptions morph, a bit like the weather, all dependent on what the mind considers. This is good. Would there be many things worse than stubbornly sticking to a thought or decision when it should or could reasonably change?

But, often we’ll feel weak or guilty for changing our minds. Sometimes we know we shouldn’t buckle, but at other times a change of mind brings the peace of acceptance we’d perhaps long prayed for.

These latter times, when the prayer was for our minds to be changed by the will of God, are true blessings; for it is God that has turned our thinking, miraculously it seems.

Suddenly we are ready (finally) for the next thing.

***

We have the freedom to change our minds. It is our life after all. Nobody else has charge over what we think or decide. All that is left is to seek wisdom: find God’s will.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

Oh, To Be ‘Used’!

One genuine prayer of the Christian person is to be used by God. This is where spiritual and unspiritual persons divide. And the purposes of love separate them. But, all of us hate being used for loveless gain, whereas we delight in being used toward purposeful ends.

Contrasts in Being Used

There would hardly be a bigger dissimilarity between being used and abused and being selected for a special task that aligns with our core identity. One has rejection written all over it; the other acceptance in abundance.

Even more intrinsically, the former has refused to love, whilst the latter is effused in love. God has been left out on the first; the second has “God” written all over it.

Being used one way leaves us feeling dirty, depressed, and angry. Being used the other way leaves us never feeling better; that is, we feel purposefully used. This is how God uses us.

Feeling Purposefully Used

Deeper down, still, the purposes of our entire lives are enshrined in finding effective use of ourselves. Life is otherwise boring, frustrating, pointless, or hopeless.

We cannot find our purpose despite God. And we either find our purpose(s) or we’re gifted them. God is the great Disposer of the desire within and the opportunity alike. It’s a blasphemous travesty on anyone’s part to defraud God the credit for instilling and satisfying the desire of purpose.

For every success and every good gift, God’s the one we thank (James 1:17).

Feeling purposefully used helps us see the unique importance of simplicity in our lives. When our purpose is known, and we have the capacity to achieve it, we can live the simple life that God has ordained for us.

Driving Home Our Purpose

Having dealt with the issue of whether we feel ‘used’ or not, we can go on with our purpose. Indeed, it is our God-destined responsibility to ensure we drive home this purpose of ours.

Sheeting home the advantage as soon as we’ve reeled in this purpose of ours is about making the most of our now-established ascendancy. We are to be used to our maximum potential, give or take the rest we need. This is the need for balance so there are no regrets later as we look back. Our purpose never requires us to go beyond our purpose.

***

It’s an honour to be used by God—to be selected, of all human beings, and placed in our situation, at our time, with the resources open to us, and to use all that to serve the Lord in our mortal beings. As we focus on God, and not on externalities, our Lord speaks encouragement and challenge to us. To feel anointed is what the purpose of life is all about.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.