Trevor Williams Water Song Reflection

The water song to me represents the call of Christ; the call that is made to every disciple: to come and die. The only way we can join God in his being is to, like the water, go farther and farther down to the depths of who we are, letting God strip away what is false. The only way we can rise to the High Places is to bring ourselves to the lowest, giving Christ alone the place of Lord.

During the celebration of the faithful put on by the Church of the Servant King last week there was one cameo that stood out especially to me, an african slave in the 1700's named Amus Fortune. This brother was pulled into a life he did not choose, and made a slave to injustice, yet in his soul he was no slave to his circumstances; his lord was the one who has already endured all suffering and shame.

For me, one of the biggest stumbling blocks to surrender to God is the ability to choose the way in which my life plays out. I am very much a participant of the mindset portrayed within the 'American Dream' that I can be a 'self made man' and pave my own road. In the stories of Amus and other faithful servants of Christ, I see lives that were subject to not only horrific but also banal circumstance. What is it to go to the depths than to be faithful to the Lord in the undesirable and commonplace turns which life takes?

“Hear the summons night and day, Calling us to come away. From the heights we leap and flow to the valleys down below.” The valley to me is the life that I do not choose. I am called to come away from my fantasy world where I am God to a world where I am faithful to the one who created me no matter what. There are going to be places I don't like, people I don't want to be with, boring times, and failed plans. The song of the water, however, is one of joy. And only the Great Shepherd can teach me it's tongue, because I really don't want the life I choose; my fleshly satisfaction is fleeting. The depths of my soul long to be brought to the lowest of lows, where my King has gone before me. It is only there that I can then “rise again.”

Rachael Reill's Water Song Reflection

The water gives of itself, gives life as it travels farther and farther into the valley and away from the Mountaintops. The raging river loses of its volume as it travels such distances, being reduced to a small stream. Rushing forward to its immanent death, I am struck by the joy that is present in the fulfilling of the purpose for which it was created. Joy is found in the midst of suffering, “Sweetest urge and sweetest pain,” because of the assurance of hope for future glory, “to go low and rise again.”

The Mountaintops are pretty comfortable, but we were not created to live out our lives separate from the world. We have meaning and purpose. We were intended to travel low and give freely of ourselves, our love, as we reach those in need. As western Christians who suffer very little, we tend to think that this journey of the Christian faith is one of self-glorification. It is intended for me to arrive at glory through obtaining perfection and then pitch my tent there for the rest of my days. We are wrong; we were never intended to camp on the mountaintops. We have been called to go into all the nations and share the Good News. We were not saved from this life that is often painful, but for a purpose; that we can share this message of a great Love.

Amanda Paxton's Water Song Reflection

The water is beckoned downward by forces of gravity and momentum much faster than it can even realize. Soaking oneself in the Spirit, jumping off the rock and letting go of the bank's branches sends a man careening down a path that he himself cannot determine but can only discover. He does not moderate the speed, but has rather already released his right to decide it. He can not predict much ahead, but only recognize the patterns of how the riverbed tends to curve and what affect the rocks have on his limbs each time the waterfall renders injury unavoidable.

In my own life, my desire is to be released to that rushing journey, trusting that God will provide the areas of calm water where I can rest and my wounds will be nursed. Continually, though, and without my plan, I know that God's river will always be a step ahead of me. I will not be dragged or pulled, but rather swept away--sometimes with my eyes smashed shut, and sometimes whimpering in fear, but always gripping tightly to His hand as we go down together. The lowest places are both the most and least lonely--but the ironic joy of the low places is that God's promise is that I'll never truly be released into the hands of the true lowest places. Just as jumping off a cliff may feel like a complete release into death, God's promise is that the parachute cord will never fail and my two feet will undoubtedly hit the ground in the end, to a place where death is just a memory and tears are no more. With this promise, I plug my nose and cannonball into the water, resting in the hope that He's sweeping me away towards eternity with Him.

Teddy DIckerson's Water Song Reflection

I have to “leap” into pain you say? I have to be willing to be ridiculed, hurt, vulnerable not only at MY choosing, be seen in all of my imperfection? Embrace pain? I don’t want that, I don’t want pain! I feel like I have been standing on the bank of this river for an eternity. My feet creeping over the edge, my knees bent ready to leap, my hands in the perfect divers form…but there I continue to stand. The water is so beautiful in its perfection as its whole being is to be as the Shepherd is. I am faced with the questions, “you want to know me? You want to do my will?” “Of course” is my first thought followed quickly by “sweetest pain,” and so there I stand on the bank of the river.

Enough is enough! My selfishness has kept my feet planted on this bank for far too long. I am saying goodbye to all MY hopes, MY dreams, MY false identity, MY self preservation, MY expectations, MY way, MY image, MY security, MY entitlements. Goodbye to doing the will of the Father for MY benefit (if even possible), to all MY striving for affirmation, MY need to do everything right but not living rightly, goodbye to PRIDE.

Bring on the “sweetest pain” and the “lowest place.” My desire is to flow as water flows. My perfect form does nothing for me, I belly flop into the water. Consider this an alter.

Cassie Boddington's Water Song Reflection

For me this song is a beckoning of self-emptying, humbling yourself and making yourself nothing. It is calling me to release my pride in vulnerability, fears, self-glory and to go to the lowest place within myself and within the body of Christ. It is calling me to have a joyful spirit while being a servant to the body of Christ even to the lowest places on earth. It is calling for an “attitude that should be the same as that of Christ Jesus. Who Being in very nature of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man he humbled himself and became obedient to death-even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name.” (Philippians 2:5-9)

Joanna Miller's Water Song Reflection

Jesus said, “Follow me, become who you were meant to be in Me.”

So we lay everything at His feet and start on the journey.

And as long as we keep following, keep moving, the current of His mercy will take us where we need to go.

It may be down, further than we thought possible, but the family of God flows and moves with the Spirit, bumping along the jagged rocks, the smooth feeling of fish traveling alongside us lifting our souls because they seem to know exactly where they are going.

We were born in this crevice of the world. We were born to flow, not to fight, but to follow, not defy.

And so each day we hear His voice, and we continue to follow, to flow, down, deeper, deeper. We find joy in fulfilling our purpose. We don’t always know what lies beyond the bend, but when we choose to move with Him, it is then that he guides us, taking us into His arms, carrying us.

He never cushions our fall. Instead he delivers us from the treacherous depths.

How beautiful it is to follow. How sweet it is to surrender.

How awe filled are we to know that a higher place is coming.

Liesl Stuhr's Water Song Reflection

The water song found in Hinds Feet is such a refreshing poem to read in the conviction it presents. I feel like it speaks so much to the call that Christ has given to us. It seems to take his message and put it into one simple sentence “sweetest urge and sweetest pain, to go low and rise again.” The very image I get in my head is of pouring yourself out completely and joyfully. It brings such joy to pour out your heart and serve Christ and those whom he loves.

I find such encouragement in my life from this water song in the image it gives me. When I read it I see a community working together, finding joy in serving Christ through fulfilling what it was created to do. Created to go from the high places to the lowest places, leaping with joy as it is spreading God’s love and peace while flowing down into the lowest places. “It is happy to go low.” I love this line, for even Christ himself said that he came not for the healthy but for the sick. He went from the highest place to the Valley of Humiliation where we have been holding ourselves in bondage by our own sickness. He poured out his love and his blood for us and is calling me with community to pour out myself for others as well.

It’s not easy, at least not for me. That is one way that I find this song convicting. I struggle a lot with giving all of myself and having the vulnerability that is required to pour myself out. I fear what type of image that reveals about me, I fear my lack of ability. Yet in this poem and this book I realize what type of journey that I am on. Like Much-Afraid when I read this song I wondered what the water meant and how the water has such joy while flowing down away from the high places, yet I am learning what pure joy it is to hear the call and to be like the water “always answering to the call, to the lowest place of all.” I find the desire for this growing stronger and stronger in my life, I am now finding joy as I am being sent to flow freely and joyfully down the hill. I have come to look forward to the moments where I can pour out that love, that message to people through a word, a smile a touch. I too want my song to end in “sweetest urge and sweetest pain, to go low and rise again”

Jim Wick's Water Song Reflection

Where is He?

There he is amongst the snags and in the hollows as he rescues those that have befallen the grip of the hydraulic torrent.

He struggles against the grasp of the dark that surrounds the unbeknownst in the depth of their arrested attention.

Like water He moves, fluidly finding the cracks and crevices as he clears way the prey trapped between the frays.

As if His concern is only completed by the responsiveness of the removal of the obstruction, as the befallen are absorbed in the flow of His rushing spring.

Alive, without regard and without hesitation He implores them in the cascade of the ensuing waters of the spring.

I can hear Him as I pray, summoned, will I obey? Becoming able to see the need to accept, thanking Him for the persistence of consequence as we follow the way.

How low will He go? How much longer, farther, how deep must I go?

I am realizing that much like Hannah Hurnard’s character “Much Afraid,” we are on a journey of “lower still” its about our need for the Water to seek us out and find the depth of our soul…

“Ours is a journey inward, now, ours is journey outward.” Here we go, lower even still.

Chanelle Freese's Water Song Reflections

Down, down, down, deeper into the dark, oh yeah, but with a dark look on my face and a posture that shows it... This is my confession of what interpreting this song might look like in my life ... When Christ is calling me to humility, I have the choice to release my "sweet will" and "go down lower still", but what is my heart saying, what do my eyes speak of, how does my life represent Christ as He calls me to the depths of His will? Is it really happy to go low? Well, these waters speak of happiness and enthusiasm and urges and ...pain.

I am afraid of pain, why would I want to go low and be humbled and feel pain? Because we have been commanded to follow these moving waters, to the valley and to the answering of the call. This call, to grow and to experience the depths of the valley, so that when we rise again, we are stronger and joyful because of it. To be able to go down with grace is a terribly hard lesson to learn though. Submitting my will to Christ first off, is very difficult for me to do, but to do it with grace, humility and enthusiasm!

Thankfully, it is a process, and the waters flow at a pace that won't be more than we are able to handle so, Lord, "let us away- lower, lower every day"...