A RIVER IN THE RIVER

“Hay un rio en el rio!”  Translated:  There’s a river in the river.  These are the words the pilot of a Bolivian navel vessel said to Hubert Harriman when as a young man he asked the captain why they were meandering back and forth as the boat made its way down the river.  They had to follow a deeper stream in the river.  If they didn’t, they could wreck the boat on the rocks.  Like life, the river in the river was not linear.  There was nothing more important that knowing where you were in the river and staying in the stream away from the rocks.

Harriman writes, “There is a safe and pure stream that runs through the whole of Scripture.  If we don’t see it, we will get caught up in following after things that can sidetrack us from the main thing.  There is a holiness river in the wide textual river of the Bible.”*  This river within the river glows in the light of God’s Word.  It flows in the sacred direction of God’s will.  It carries us to places intended by God for our good.  It moves us into greater waters of grace and carries us into greater intimacy with God.

 

The Apostle John writes in the Book of Revelation (22:1) of God’s pure river of  The Psalmist writes “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God.”  This is the river of holiness.  The waters of the river are God’s perfect love, love that is pure, love constantly flowing from the heart of God, washing us, and giving us a heart of holiness like his heart, whiter that the snow.

It carries the water of life clear as crystal proceeding from the throne of God.

There is a river in the river of our Christian life.  It is the river of God’s perfecting love and holiness.  As it flows, He makes possible the infilling of the fullness of God (Ephesians. 3:19).  Hay un rio en el rio!

*See Hubert P. Harriman and Barry L. Callen, Color me Holy:  Holy God-Holy People, Aldersgate Press, 2013, pp. 41&42.