Untorched Faith

 I'm shocked when I hear it's gone. 

A local church I've driven past often - one I even recall being built - has burned. A total loss. And there is no reason given. All that's known is now the unknown as faithful worshippers find themselves without a church home. 

Ironically, it's called River of Life, and I shake my head at the fact that even a church with a name associated with water couldn't hold up under the flames. 

The whole story seems oddly fitting in a year when so much has gone wrong. So much has stunned us, leaving us picking up our jaws off the floor or holding our breath in panicked silence. It has seemed an endless string of bad news. In moments like these, when the fires have swept the West or the hurricanes have slammed the South or now a church has been leveled by flames, I find myself wondering why this. Why now? Hasn't everyone enough to handle? 

The Psalmist's lament slips from my lips as I cry out, "How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and answer me, O Lord my God; light up my eyes lest I sleep the sleep of death, lest my enemy say, 'I have prevailed over him,' lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken" (Psalm 13:1-4). 

"How long?" seems to be the question on everyone's souls these days. We are weary. Overwhelmed. Needy. 

But suddenly, my heart is directed toward a promise, one given centuries after David poured out his anguish to God in prayer. I am reminded of the fact that the church now destroyed is called River of Life and I think of Jesus' words to the Samaritan women at the well when he asked her for a drink, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would've asked him and he would've given you living water" (John 4:10).

"If you knew... you would've asked...and he would've given..." 

Even those of us with homes still standing and churches still open and lives still functioning, we've felt the heat of this year, and we are parched. And now a challenge that, if we truly knew the gift, we would ask for more of Him, and He would give it. More grace. More patience. More forgiveness. More love. More faith. More hope. 

We've long wanted this craziness to be over. For the shock, the uncertainty, and the suspense to stop. We're tired. But in asking God, "How long?" perhaps we're overlooking the one thing He's most able to give. Perhaps we're missing because we don't fully, deeply know and therefore we're asking the wrong thing. Instead of requesting to be removed from the flames, maybe we ought to be asking for a fireproof faith. Maybe we ought to be praying for an extra portion of that living water to quench our thirst in these times. 

Suddenly, I'm seeing it clear: this season is putting all we've placed our trust in to the test. All the things of this world are falling short and, from it all, we're realizing that God is all we've got. Jesus told the woman that "everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life." 

So perhaps we're all realizing in the most difficult way possible that we've drunk too much from the well of the world and we need to run to the eternal well if we have any hope. And those precious people who now have no church to meet in, they're finding out that those flames, while devastating, didn't burn down the actual River of Life. The building may be gone but that living water was un-torched. It's still springing up inside their souls even though the fire took their church walls down. 

As we all continue to pray for a way forward from all this, may we continue to pray for a way inward from all this. For a greater drink of the abundant life God grants. A life that can't be taken away no matter what goes up in flames. Dreams, hopes, plans can turn to ash but the well of eternal life is guaranteed to never run dry. And that is comfort in these desert days. Water our souls, God, for we come to the river to drink.