Digging Deeper

From "Next Reformation":

This morning I sat with a friend at St. Arbucks and one of the questions that came up was this: what happened to all the renewal streams that were flowing ten years ago? Where has all that water gone?

Living in a desert, one learns that rain only falls seasonally, and not much at that. Yet the desert is a living ecological system. Desert ecology has adapted to the seasonal rainfall. This occurs both in physical ways, in the actual structure of the desert environment, and in the living ecology itself.

First, in the structure. The water still exists in the desert, but it doesn’t flow in open streams on the surface. Instead, in desert ecology, water moves underground. If you know that and you want to access the water, you have to dig wells. I’ll get to the application in a minute.

Second, in the living ecology of the plants and animals. The flora and fauna of desert life has adapted by storing water in creative ways. The cactus is maybe the most notable example of the plant adaptation. Keep the water near you, and protect it, and use only what you must until the rains come again.

The water of renewal isn’t falling like it was ten years ago. In some cases where it appears to be falling what we are seeing is a fleshly attempt to preserve life that is long past. We have a good example of this in Scripture where Moses was told not to try to save the manna that appeared every morning. Ignoring that instruction only brought a bad smell.

When the water of the Spirit isn’t falling it still exists, in rivers that are flowing beneath the surface of things. I see two applications here, and both fall under the need to go deeper.
First, we need to dig wells. There is a lot of this going on; many movements and people are accessing old wells, and it is part of the drive to recover missional orders.

We need to learn and discover where the water of the Spirit has been flowing and been stored in times past. This is the call to,

“Stand at the crossroads and look.
Ask for the ancient paths, and where the best road is.
Walk on it and you will live in peace.” Jer. 6:16

Second, we need to dwell deeper in Christ through the use of spiritual disciplines. As Dallas Willard put it, “Grace is opposed to earning, not to effort. Earning is an attitude. Effort is an action.” (The Great Omission, 166).

When the water is flowing freely on the surface of things, we have a great play time. Everything seems easy. When the water is no longer so easily accessed, we learn to work for it. In fact, I believe the water of Spirit flows less abundantly for precisely this reason. After a time, we begin to think enjoyment is the main idea. The Lord removes that ability so that we are forced to do deep, to actually learn to lean dependently on Him. We get our eyes off ourselves and onto the task set before us. The desert experience calls us to maturity, to learn to go out and work with our father. We no longer find him in shelters and safe places, but out on the road. If we follow him out into the world we’ll find life flowing in hidden ways — in unexpected ways and unexpected places.

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