background on Rivers

What do you suppose would happen if we paid attention to God’s commands? We don’t have to wonder, because He told us clearly: “If only you had paid attention to my commands, / your peace would have be...

Leo Tolstoy, the writer of some of the most beautiful and complex stories in literature, had this to say on the topic of human nature and qualities that define us: One of the commonest and most gene...

Water is an essential requirement for any form of life. The earth is blessed with huge volumes of water at the surface, which is one of the main reasons why it is habitable. Seventy percent of the ear...

Just as our bodies need exercise to be strong physically, our faith needs exercise if we are to be strong spiritually. It has often been noted that several rivers flow into the Dead Sea, but no river ...

You fear you won’t. We all do. We fear that the depression will never lift, the yelling will never stop, the pain will never leave…We wonder: Will this gray sky ever brighten ? This load ever lighten...

The angel said there would be no end to his kingdom.  So for three hundred days I carried rivers and cedars and mountains.  Stars spilled in my belly when he turned. Now I can’t stop touching hi...

This elementary wonder, however, is not a mere fancy derived from the fairy tales; on the contrary, all the fire of the fairy tales is derived from this…. We all like astonishing tales because they to...

An atheist was walking through the woods, admiring all the “accidents” that evolution had created. “What majestic trees! What powerful rivers! What beautiful animals!” he said. Suddenly he heard a ru...

In The Silmarillion, J. R. R. Tolkien imagines the creation of the world as a divine chorale, with creation appearing out of nothingness like a glorious unfurling tapestry as God sings and the heavenl...

In 1995, the gray wolf was reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park after a seventy-year hiatus. Scientists expected an ecological ripple effect, but the size and scope of the trophic cascade took th...

Most people who live to old age do so not because they have beaten cancer, heart disease, depression or diabetes. Instead, the long-lived avoid serious ailments altogether through a series of steps th...

The Bible is like a vast geographical basin in which tributary streams feed into the currents of a parent river on its course to the ocean. The riverbanks are interspersed with openings where the trib...

One could spend long hours making a list of great human achievements-from the wheel to the great cathedrals to the discovery of DNA and the development of computers-and Ivet leave out one of the most ...

Dan DeHaan, talked about man’s quest to grasp a full understanding of God’s character being like a boy following a trickling brook as it flowed downstream. Step by step, as he followed each babble and...

There once was a town high in the Alps that straddled the banks of a beautiful stream. The stream was fed by springs that were old as the earth and deep as the sea.  The water was clear like crysta...

There's a humorous, apocryphal story about a man standing by a river. On the opposite bank, a woman calls out, "How do I get to the other side of the river?" The man replies, "YOU A...

“Ask any school boy, ‘Which way does the Mississippi River flow?” He will say, ‘From north to south.’ If you have flown over the Mississippi there are times and places where the Mississippi River will...

I found that tides and currents do not determine destination. That is what rudders and engines and sails are for. While you don’t dare ignore the tides and currents, you also never get anywhere if you...

The man who is wise, therefore, will see his life as more like a reservoir than a canal. The canal simultaneously pours out what it receives; the reservoir retains the water till it is filled, then di...

In the frigid waters around Greenland are countless icebergs, some little and some gigantic. If you’d observe them carefully, you’d notice that sometimes the small ice floes move in one direction whil...

In A River Runs Through It, Norman MacLean’s Father, a Presbyterian Minister, is sitting on the bank of the river, reading the Gospel of John while his sons are fishing. When Norman comes over to wher...

Have you heard the old spiritual “Down to the River to Pray” or “The Good Old Way”? It is most famous in popular culture because of Alison Kraus’s version of the song recorded for the movie O Broth...

Theologian John S. Dunne tells of a group of early Spanish sailors who reached the continent of South America after an arduous voyage. Their caravels sailed into the headwaters of the Amazon, an expan...

Dear Lord, Today I thought of the words of Vincent Van Gogh. It is true that there is an ebb and flow but the sea remains the sea. You, oh God, are the sea. Although I experience many ups and downs i...

In 1829, Martin Van Buren, then governor of New York, wrote the following to the president: The canal system of this country is being threatened by the spread of a new form of transportation known as...

In this short excerpt, scholar Ken Bailey provides context to the 23rd Psalm: “He leads me besides quiet waters”: M.P. Krikorian grew up in a village near Tarsus in southeast Turkey. Born into a fam...

Political freedom is great. But personal, social, and emotional freedom—when it becomes an ultimate end—absolutely sucks. It leads to a random, busy life with no discernible direction, no firm foundat...

A. Parnell Bailey visited an orange grove where an irrigation pump had broken down. The season was unusually dry and some of the trees were beginning to die for lack of water. The man giving the tour ...

Charles Spurgeon related a trip through the Lake District, when a dense fog descended on him and his fellow travelers, “we felt ourselves to be transported into a world of mystery where everything was...

To help us in our confession we may want to picture a path littered with many rocks. Some are small pebbles, others are quite large, and still others are almost completely buried so that we cannot kno...