Staying in the River

The more I learn, the more I see how little I know.

I don't know if I have posted it here before and I won't bother going to look for it, but I am recalling a lecture once a few years ago from a guy whose name I long forgot at a Celebrate Recovery meeting. His handout was a really bad drawing of a river with words written inside the river.
In the river was Peace, Joy, Love, Companionship..stuff like that. Also in the river was logs floating. The logs were pain, grief, discouragement and the like. In other words, life has both.
He illustrated in his graphic though what it looked like to try to get out of the river and look for just the good stuff that the river contained and avoid the logs.
However, outside the river, we are under our own control. Our own thinking and as we know, it is our thinking that got us writing things like this and if you have found your way here, reading things like this. In other words, outside His control, what we find instead of the very random and occasional moment of peace or happiness we can conger up, we find more of an abundance of logs. Kind of like driftwood maybe that we climb over and fall on.
If we choose to float in His river, yea, we will bump up against a few logs now and then, but if we honestly look at the trip, its actually mostly float time. Think about it.
I am reminded once of a trip down the Ocoee river way east of here. Lots of rapids and thrills. But the part I remember most was this one stretch where the river was wide and deep. It was just this glass smooth section of swiftly flowing water. The guide said, if you want, bail out. So, I did. Secure and trusting in my life jacket, I laid on my back, feet out in front of me and let the river just take me for a float.

I think I will hug on that memory for awhile today.