The mountains of western Massachusetts are littered with waterfalls. Most flow year round, and they are beautiful.
However, let the rains come, and they become gushing behemoths that will awe and amaze everyone who approaches their thundering majesty.
One of these is Campbell Falls. Located on the border of Massachusetts and Connecticut, the park in which they are located drapes across the state border. The falls tumble down Massachusetts’ granite boulders, but the stream continues on to water the Connecticut countryside.
In late September 2015, a massive series of storms swept across New England, breaking a months-long dry spell. The pristine water tumbling down the falls became a torrent of brown effluent.
Yet, only several hundred feet away, the flow swept into Connecticut, crystal clear and beautiful.
When we pray for God’s outflowing blessings, sometimes it’s the same. Along with the desired bounty we beseech from the Lord comes the dirt and silt stirred up by the torrent of blessings he tumbles upon our heads. Others see our blessings, and greed is stirred. Hidden sins are brought to light. Even desires we thought long submerged suddenly erupt in their verdant majesty, crowding out the beauty of God in our lives.
We get what we asked for, but it doesn’t come without a price.
The water flowing across Campbell Falls becomes pure before reaching Connecticut because of the rocks across which it tumbles and the still pools along the way. All the silt stirred up by the rush of water over the falls becomes of no consequence if we just give it enough time to purify itself through God’s natural processes.
Revelation 22:1-2 tells us:
“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”
When we let Christ sift our lives, our blessings will abound, and the world will slough away, cleansed by his blood. We will become the healing of the nations, part of God’s crystal river, a blessing for those around us each and every day.
It’s the purity of love that God wants the world to see in us, not the effluent of a life lived in the cacophony of blessings we sometimes see as our due.
Copyright © 2016 MyChurchNotes.net
Originally Published 2-07-16 in Relationships