Light Lenten Reflections

Week 3

Restored!

Sometime in the middle of the last century a local farmer dammed a circuitous creek running through his property. He wanted to create a sizable fishing lake near his house on his farm land. The result was a holding place for big largemouth bass and carp. The carp, as they are apt to do, negatively impacted the quality of the lake water, but it was the dam itself that caused the most damage, interfering with the natural cleaning process of the creek, holding back sediment and pollutants. When the local forest preserve district acquired the lake and land in the early part of this century, the elongated Z-shaped lake was ranked second to last in water quality of the 162 lakes monitored by the Lake County health department.

The forest preserve district had to decide what they were going to do with the 58 acre man-made lake in their newly acquired forest preserve. Though picturesque from the distance, up close it was a very large mud puddle with eroding banks and pudding-like sediment clogging up the dam. The forest preserve district came up with three choices – ignore the mud puddle and do nothing, dredge the mud puddle and hope to improve the quality of the lake, or remove the mud puddle and restore the original creek bed. Being all about restoration, the forest preserve district opted for the last choice, embarking on a 12 year project to undo what the farmer had done almost 60 years earlier.

First, they built a cofferdam to slowly drain the lake and prevent the pudding sediment from washing downstream. They then cut a temporary channel for the water to flow through while they took deep soil and gravel samples, accurately locating the original creek bed within the now visible former lake bottom. They dug a new channel where they identified the location of the old creek bed and then redirected the water from the temporary channel to the new/original stream. Lastly, they seeded and planted the land around the new creek bed with native vegetation. After twelve years of planning and work and several million dollars, the forest preserve district now has a vibrant stream flowing through its newest preserve. It's not quite back to its original state, but it should be close in a few more years.

God made lakes and He made rivers, and they both have their places in creation, but naturally occurring rivers, creeks and streams give life in a special way to the land they flow through. When God created the first garden, he made a river flowing through it. As the river left the garden, it became four rivers, watering the lands surrounding the garden. (Genesis 2:10-14) The Bible is full of spiritual references to flowing water. The man whose delight is in the law of the Lord, according to Psalm 1, “is like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season, and is leaf does not wither”. (Vs. 2,3) Psalm 46 tells “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High”. (Vs. 4) You could “be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail” which is God's promise to those pour themselves out the the hungry and the afflicted. (Isaiah 58:10,11) And try to wrap your mind around this one from John 7 - “...Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” (Vs. 37, 38) Think about it - we get to be a flowing, life-giving river of living water just by living in a believing relationship with Jesus. We get to refresh others in the same way we ourselves are refreshed when we answer Jesus' call to come to him and drink.

Something to Ponder: Do you see your heart as a source of living water, or do you feel “dammed up”, unable to flow freely? Have you built a dam, maybe with good intentions, only to find yourself now stuck with a mud puddle of impeded flow of what God wants for you? Is the thought of getting things restored and flowing overwhelming?

Something to Pray: Grab a Bible or biblegateway.com and read Isaiah 61:1-4. Note how the Lord's anointed one does a life changing work in the poor, the brokenhearted, the captives, those who are bound. Do you identify with any of these? If so ask God to set you free. Reread verse 4. Do you believe God can build up ruins, raise former devastations, repair ruined cities? Ask Him for the faith to believe those things. If there are any dammed up areas in your life that prevent your heart from freely flowing with rivers of living water, ask the Lord to do the the necessary restoration.

“May what I do flow from me like a river, no forcing and no holding back, the way it is with children.”― Rainer Maria Rilke