“Forget the former things;
    do not dwell on the past.
 See, I am doing a new thing!
    Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
    and streams in the wasteland.” (Isaiah 43:18-19)

“A river that will not change is no longer a river; it is a ditch, or a pond.”

Every time I walk by the Tar, the river is different. Sometimes a little, like a shift in the light; sometimes a lot, like flood stage where the entire park is under water; sometimes because of the season… or the time of day… or the clouds….

When we arrived here late last year the trees were already bare; now they are adding a rush of new leaves every day. The riverbanks look fresh and new and bursting with life.

The water, of course, is always on the move. It was Greek philosopher Heraclitus who said, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”

Heraclitus, who taught and wrote in Ephesus around 500 BC, was not so much being “Mr. Obvious Man” as he was commenting on the human condition; our tendency is to resist change, and try to make things fixed and immovable when that is exactly what life is not.

We try to fix things in place because we are comfortable where we are; or because we are fearful, lacking confidence and ill-equipped for change. But, like the river, life is new every morning and the principle of change is built into the definition of life.

Why do we struggle against life?

Life, biology tells us, is defined by change. For an organism to be classified as alive the conditions that distinguish organic from inorganic matter include – according to the definition of “life” – the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death.

We are alive, then, to the extent that we demonstrate these characteristics. The church is alive, it follows, to the extent that it is defined by growth, reproduction, activity, and continual change.

The “hence” (accordingly, consequently, therefore) here is that if change grinds to a halt then – inevitably – we have to declare death.

Why do we struggle so much against life? Why do we move heaven and earth sometimes to keep things so immovable and inactive that we work against newness and growth and life itself?

Fear. Fear immobilizes and chokes off life. Unbelief. Lack of faith. Jesus, however, said that love disables fear.

A current buzzword, is the idea of “flow.” People talk about achieving “flow state.” Well you can’t flow if you’re a pond; you have to be a river – DEREK

“I like geography best, he said, because your mountains & rivers know the secret. Pay no attention to boundaries.” 
- Brian Andreas

You can’t flow if you’re a pond; you have to be a river.

Derek Maul