THE LONG CREEK

Anticipation can be a wonderful thing when it ends with a fulfillment. What is straining is when that expectancy of reaching some stream of blessing merely brings you to a dry creek bed. And you keep trusting and hoping, continuing to stroll towards the place you think will be a promise, but it just never seems to reach any point of refreshing.

Doubts parch the soul and naturally there is every reason to feel frustrated. Then when you do finally reach the water, you are so exhausted you wonder if it really was worth the journey.

The Christian life is not one of clarity constantly. We may walk in the light, but that doesn't mean there are never any shadows.

However, the one reality is that each trip up one of those creeks is different from the last. It might be in only some small way, but it will have a different face to some degree.

Still, we travel as our heart leads. It might seem like a foolish journey to some. What a pity when it includes those who claim to be Christians, but they've never actually ventured up any creek bed themselves.

Sadly, it is possible to go through the motions, learn all the talk and yet, never truly be brought to the kind of testing that only is experienced in the creek beds. It is the trip within that leads beyond our eyes. A pilgrimage of discovery that we can't make by any road trip.

The good news is that such journeys are not the result of mistakes necessarily, but of God's leading. And in times perhaps we even learn when the reality is that God never intended us to reach the water of some creek or ordeal till we truly learned he is the source of the creek.

So we take the steps as commanded and directed. It might not be as appealing as some would desire. Nor will it necessarily bring us to the place we want or expect.

It all is more a day that turns into a week of understanding if we keep our eyes focused o what we earnestly are willing to let God show us from the experience. And should it end up even taking a life time, can we ask ourselves to see in the long creek bed more than a place of waiting?

Each person can only answer that question for his or herself. It truly is a long creek stroll of blessing when we discover along the way more than the need for waiting. And regardless of where the creek takes us, it we wait upon the Lord he will grant us the knowledge we need to see into that creek bed the message intended for us.

Should the destination not be the one we anticipated that is the time we can stop and look deeply into that mirror of pure retrospection and seek to appreciation was our expectations one inspired by the lord? Sometimes that answer is the best blessing one could have.