Day 32 The River of Life and The Ice Sculptor

Life is a river that continues flowing for as long as any life exists.

It never stops flowing in us too. It’s source began when we took our first breath and it will finish when it flows out into the sea of eternity.

We are on a journey in a canoe. We can make slight adjustments by using our paddles, but we cannot predict where the rapids or the waterfalls of life will be. All we can do is to believe that this, our special canoe, will carry us through or over anything that comes our way.

Our canoe is our life. It has been specially designed and built for us for the one who created us knows the course of the river and what we will need each and every day on our journey.

Sometimes, all we can do is to let the rapid currents of the river carry us, often not able to do more than occasionally use our paddles to keep ourselves out of danger. At other times the river is beautifully calm and tranquil and we have many opportunities to paddle over to the banks of the river and have a picnic under the branches of a weeping willow tree, before once more getting back in and continuing downstream.

Many want to travel upstream against the flow of the river. They want to go to places that they were never meant to travel to, all because they are afraid of what might be downstream. Some want to stop the river altogether and remain permanently picnicking.

However, the river is where true, real life happens and it knows every turn and all that it will run over and it isn’t afraid. And neither too must you be. To be afraid of life is like living in a dimmed world, where we can neither be happy on the banks of the river or on the water. It is better that we find one place where we can learn to be content.

Contentment is a very undervalued joy. To be content with life in whatever place you find yourself is a gift from heaven to those who have travelled through many rapids and come out the other side. Sometimes contentment can only come forth when we have faced our worst fears and not only survived them but now thrive. We have learnt that every place has a gift for us, even the hard, horrible places. We know that we would not be the man or woman we are today without not only the good that we have been blessed with in our lives, but also many of the sorrows.

We have learned that every circumstance and even every conversation has carved into us something of who God wants us to be.

It is as if we are a block of ice and each day, God is an ice sculptor. He knows before he begins to carve us what he is making. Sometimes he chips off a large bit of ice and it hurts and we feel such loss. In fact, in order for him to carve, he needs to chip off a lot of us and there will be many losses.

At first, none of his chipping away makes sense because we can’t make out what he’s carving from our block of ice. “Will I be a mountain or a river or a lake or an antelope or a deer or bird or cloud or a candle?” We don’t know, but he does. He would not start making a swan and then halfway through change to making a squirrel, because many of the parts of the ice required would already have been removed. No, he knows before he makes his first mark upon us who we will be when his final chip has been made. He knows that if we let him continue to carve us as he desires year after year, at the end of our lives we will be delighted with what he was able to create from our block of ice.

It is only those who shy away from some of the knocks and hard chips in life who might not see all that they could have been, because he knows that they hate what he’s doing. He cares more about his relationship with them than getting his own way as a sculptor. He tries many times to encourage them to let him go a little further, but for some, he knows he has to stop.

Many fear that he will run out of time and that all these knocks and chips won’t be completed before the ice melts and they end up as a gooey mess on the floor. But the greatest of ice sculptors knows not only how to carve the ice but also how long he’s got before the ice melts. So, there is no need to fear, for what he has begun in you he will bring to completion.

Those who learn to trust the ice sculptor learn too to eventually trust the river and stop asking, “What is around the next corner”. They know that they can’t change what’s ahead but now have confidence that they will not only get through it, but be nearer to having their carving completed.

Let the river of life take you to where she wants you to go. Trust that she will never ask more of you than you can give. And believe that your relationship with the greatest of creators is more important to him than anything.

Where are you on the river of life at the moment?

What do you enjoy about where you are and what do you find difficult?

What do you most fear about the river to come?

Have you yet found a place of contentment?

What kind of marks or chippings is the Ice Sculptor making upon you at the moment? How do you feel about that?

Have you any idea what he is making from you or what you hope to become?