[This post was written for a talk I gave at a Mothers’ Day Breakfast.]
While pregnant with my first, never having been much of a “girly girl” and being outdoorsy, I thought I would be more suited to boys, and in fact was so utterly convinced my firstborn was going to be a boy, I almost declined the tech’s announcement at the twenty week ultrasound; after all, I already knew! I was so shocked to hear I was bearing a little girl, it took me almost a week to adjust to the news. After the ultrasound, my husband and I drove to a favorite nearby eatery to celebrate that we’d not been to in some time. To our surprise, a new restaurant had moved in known as “Zoe’s Kitchen.” We’d chosen that name even before getting pregnant in the event God brought us a daughter. We are so thankful for our Zoe, and the double blessing of her sister Isabella born two and a half years later. If I could go back and change the news about having a boy or a girl, I wouldn’t change a thing.
There is such a powerful joy at the solemn responsibility of raising our daughters to walk in the joy and freedom, the peace and dignity that is our heritage as daughters of a king—the King. We are called to set an example, and by God’s grace, to raise example-setters. I love the imagery of Philippians 2:14-15 which says:
Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life.”
In preparing, my prayer and heart’s desire is to only speak what I sense the Holy Spirit is saying for this specific group. His love for each of us is truly beyond words to say, and my deep hope is that you’d come away from this event remembering not so much what I’ve shared, as what He wants to impress upon your heart today as I share. When I read the gospels, I am always amazed that when people encountered Jesus, they were not the same afterwards. We want to encounter Him anew in this place today.
When Bonnie first reached out to ask what the title of today’s talk would be, while I already had a sense of what would be shared, I didn’t have a working title. I find that in the twists and turns of creative process, where one begins and ends rarely comes about in a linear way. And yet, somewhat to my surprise, when I prayed on it, I heard not in audible words but from within that the topic was supposed to be “going with the flow.” I was somewhat amused as the expression doesn’t seem to deliver much in the way of profound insight or inspiration, but sensing it was from God, I was intrigued nonetheless. And then, two life experiences flashed in my mind’s eye, and with them, an epiphany. But I will get to those in a moment.
Now, we’re all of course very familiar with the overused saying “go with the flow.” Perhaps it’s been spoken over you: “Hey, just go with the flow!” For some circumstances, it is an oft-repeated adage to not fight something inevitable, to be more accepting; for others, it is a warning regarding the danger of “going with the flow” in order to not drift away from purposeful or meaningful action.
A dictionary definition of the phrase is “to be relaxed and simply accept a situation, rather than trying to alter, to change, or to control it.” I like that definition in that it offers a neutrally charged understanding of the phrase. But I’d like to dig a little deeper and look at both the negative and the positive sides to “going with the flow”, and see what application we as women of God might make.
So. I’m a word nerd, and love to put even what seems to be obvious terms under the microscope to more fully appreciate all aspects.
Flow defined ~
Flow: [verb] to move along or out steadily and continuously in a current or stream (such as a fluid). Synonyms: run, move, go along, course, proceed, glide, slide, circulate, spill, stream, surge, sweep, gush, cascade, pour, roll, rush.
Flow: [noun] A steady, continuous stream of something. Synonyms: movement, motion, course, passage, current, flux, circulation.
So, let’s look again at the popular definition of the saying “go with the flow” which is: “To be relaxed and simply accept a situation, rather than trying to alter, to change or to control it.”
While we all can certainly can fall prey to “going with the flow” when we should be resisting something or taking a different stand, in general, “going with the flow” is not something that comes easily or naturally to me. Let’s take housekeeping as an example. I don’t know how many of you may relate, but feel free to fill in the blanks with your own quiet struggle.
While pride of home could be the driving factor, I certainly can’t say I’m proud of the fact that I can be dashing out the door on the brink of running late for an appointment and still stop to straighten an askew towel, or take the time to fling a stray sock in the general direction of its partner crumpled across the floor. Passing through the gauntlet of randomness and chaos which earmarks the early years of living with young children just to get out the door can feel like being a one-contestant member on one of those crazy Japanese game shows.
And while I have yet to take a DNA test to determine all the nuances of my obsessive-compulsive ;0) I mean my ethnic heritage, the predominant is German, and it comes up in all sorts of ways to remind me. Last year at this time we had a chance to go to Germany to visit dear German friends and incidentally, a cousin of mine who is a Nazarene missionary in a quaint little village on the Rhine. We experienced the truth in all aspects of day to day living that Germans are obsessed with order, and I will freely admit to being as well. There are many good things that come from this orientation. After all, even Scripture says “God is a God of order, not chaos”, right?
But like the proverbial speck versus beam in the eye, the plank in my own can blind me to seeing truer, deeper and less temporal priorities. I can spend time trying to order and fix things that frankly are not at all within the territory of God’s priorities for me.
So, if you will recall, there were two memories directly coming to mind when I sensed God wanted me to speak on the topic of “flow.” One of them occurred on our trip to Germany.
After visiting my cousin on the Rhine in an enclave surrounded by Switzerland, we had a long drive back to Nuremberg in the dark. We had been offered a deal on a rental car that included me as a driver. Now, I don’t know about you, but in my perfect world, where all people are safe drivers, speed limits are suggestions, not requirements. And if you’re anything like me, perhaps you’ll relate to this vignette. I got behind the wheel for my first stint on the famed Autobahn. As I whizzed along at a good clip of speed, and yes, obeying the speed limit, suddenly, there it was, on illuminated signage high above the three highway lanes: a newly posted limit, or should I say, non-limit, indicated by a simple circle with three diagonal lines across its diameter. Shorthand for, in essence, “don’t you dare be found driving any kind of speed limit in this zone.” While familiar with the term “pedal to the metal”, this was the first time I can say I’d ever had the astonishment of discovering what contact of the gas pedal pressed entirely against the floor was like. Little chortles of joy escaped from my lips as the car sped through the night, my daughters peacefully slumbering in their car seats in the back, my husband in the passenger seat silent and bracing himself, no doubt interceding for our safe passage the whole way.
As I pondered that event some time later, I was compelled to ask the question of what made it so wonderful, and realized that it could be boiled down to one thing: the joy of “flow.” In full disclosure, I do have a clean driving record, and it’s been quite a few years since receiving a speeding ticket. =)
So, I’d like to share the other memory that came to mind in regard to the topic of flow, and then I ‘d like to suggest what applications can be made. I love that pictures, including word pictures have the power to speak volumes more than simple words can, which I’m sure is the prime reason why Jesus spoke in parables. So, here goes. Slightly peculiar word picture two.
My second daughter was delivered like the first, via emergency c-section. Use of a catheter for the first stage of recovery was necessary. Having gone quite some time without liquid refreshment, I can hardly express the joy of taking large draughts of cool, refreshing water to my heart’s content. This I did until one of the nurses tired of tending to the results of my watery indulgence chided me saying: “I think you’re hydrated now.” Now, as someone who in normal life seems to not typically be able to drink much water without spending the better portion of the day running to the restroom, laying abed with my precious little one tucked close and getting a chance to drink and drink and drink without a moment’s discomfort was an amazing experience. No thirst, purest refreshment, utter hydration, and cleansing of that which needed to go.
I came to the bewildering conclusion that the postpartum recovery room experience was much like driving on the autobahn–it was this–the sheer joy of utterly and completely uninterrupted flow. If you can bear with the analogies: one experience was the flow of peace. It brought nourishment, was about receiving, it was about release. The other was the flow of passion. It required precision and focus, it was entirely hands on, and yet, both produced a sense of intense well being that would be hard to describe as anything other than deeply satisfying.
As the mother of young children, this concept of “flow” is something I’ve grown to cherish in new ways. I have come to define flow, whether from a place of passion or peace, as the absence of interruption. Ahhhh…the absence of interruption.
The truth I felt the Holy Spirit whisper to me about the two examples of flow that were brought to mind, polarized though they are:
When we are flowing in our God-given desires, we enable an even more essential flowing: that of full connection between the heart and the mind.
While many have never heard of a British politician by the name of Andrew Bennett, you may have heard his well-known quote before: “The longest journey you will ever take is the 18 inches from your head to your heart.”
So now, you might be thinking: okay, what do drinking gallons of water or driving over 100 kilometers and hour have to do with this? It’s what they represent: the connection that uniquely takes place when our mind and our heart align.
One represents to me the joy of sustenance; the other, the joy of adventure. We were created for both. But back to the mind / heart connection. When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, he replied:
Love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind. (Luke 10:27)
We need his sustenance to achieve this!
Jesus’s words in John 15:5 illuminate the ultimate flow:
I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
I love that he calls it “every branch in me” –- I believe he is saying that what happens to us, happens to him! He feels and knows our every sorrow, and identifies with us intimately. The prophet Isaiah spoke of God’s suffering servant as a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. He also knows our joys! We are inseparable, and it is that way by design. There is no partnership more intimate, and when all else around us fails, as it inevitably will in some way or another, it is the one connection that will sustain us from the inside out. It’s amazing, it cannot be seen any more than we can see the sap flowing in a plant or tree that keeps it alive. And yet, it is ceaselessly there.
Pruning reminds me to not hold on too tightly, to anything, or anyone. That doesn’t mean we don’t love deeply, fully, and from the heart. But to remember the place of things in relation to the One we came from, to whom we will one day return. It is ultimately not to parents or friends or other beloved family, or even pastimes, hopes and dreams fulfilled: but to our Creator.
The vine imagery is one of vital, necessary and life-giving connection. It is intimate, and there is no better picture of “going with the flow.” Although I imagine nursing one’s baby is a close parallel.
For those who believe, we have been found in Christ. And from the unshakable foundation of His unconditional love, which is our place in him, we are called to be fruit-bearers:
If you remain (abide) in me and my words remain (abide) in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. (John 15:7-8)
As mothers, I’m convinced we’ve been doubly blessed to bear physical fruit, and have been graced with a deep understanding of what fruit-bearing means, both symbolically and literally.
And yet, despite the ways you know and feel you’ve been blessed, perhaps today you find yourself weary or discouraged on your path. The rigors of motherhood, personhood weigh upon us, requiring us to be limber spiritually and always at the ready. We can feel a sense of heaviness that seems to permeate all layers and levels of our being. But thankfully, as we are works in progress by divine design, He does not require us to have everything figured out, but simply that we trust Him as we go! He wants us to pry our white-knuckled grip off of the steering wheel and let Him have his way. He wants us to know we are His beloved, no matter what we have done or even what we have omitted.
I’d like to remind us of an Old Testament prophet who took a snapshot of all of us flowing in the wrong direction. Hosea was instructed to marry a woman of the night as a picture of God’s unfaithful people. Wow. The truth is that none of us are ever in a place to point fingers at one another: we have all been guilty of spiritual adultery at one point or another, turning to the flow of our own vanity over the will of God.
Following God isn’t always easy, it isn’t always comfortable, but it is always good, and we are promised times of refreshing. May we seek our refreshing and our meaning in Him, the One who took all our blame so that we could walk in freedom. It grieves His heart when we don’t look him full in the face and see the love and forgiveness and utter forgetfulness of our sin and the yearning he has to simply be close to us.
Hosea 10:12 says: Sow righteousness for yourselves, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the LORD, until he comes and showers his righteousness on you.
The World’s Flow vs. The Flow of the Spirit
Life has a funny way of sending very skewed messages our way regarding our true identity. Mixed messages can come even from well-meaning people in our lives. Depending on the combination of proximity, position and perspective, success or discouragement from staying on course can be the result.
How easy it can be to forget God held you and His plans for you in His heart before you were born? Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart. (Jeremiah 1:5)
Maybe you know what God has set you apart for, what He’s intended for you to flow in, or maybe you’re still discovering what that is. No matter what, we are all at the same level of neediness and utter dependence on our Creator to show us the way to go, and to pull us through when we feel we can’t possibly go on, when the flow seems more like a trickle, or even less.
At such times, when we feel depleted, we need to take time to spend alone with God. Just as we attend to our physical health by trying to eat well, exercising and taking care of our outer selves, we need to practice good habits for our inner health. Most of us don’t go running to unhealthy sources on purpose: we are inundated by distractions and it is so easy to pick up the phone and pull up facebook or do a search on this and that, and we end up feeling even more drained than before!
It can seem next to impossible in the midst of our busy lives to take that time aside we need to hit the reset button and to ask our Creator to show us exactly where we need his touch. But we need to offer ourselves permission to take that time. Like scheduling a parent / teacher conference, we take those moments to receive feedback and take inventory: how we need to afford the same for ourselves. As one of my cousins said to me once: “you can’t pour from an empty cup.”
Otherwise, the flow can be the wrong kind in the wrong way. Another little story for you.
There is not a woman here who doesn’t feel challenged, likely on a daily basis, of being the best she can be, inside and out. The words speaking of Abraham’s wife Sarah are enduring:
Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to adorn themselves. I Peter 3:3-5
Now, I don’t believe that passage is saying we shouldn’t take time to look nice! But there is deeper beauty.
Who hasn’t had their life changed by the warmth, the love, the mercy shown to them from someone “just because.” That person who makes us feel special, important, one of kind, on the up and up! That is exactly how your Heavenly Father feels about you! When we can truly receive that we are that loved, it changes everything. How easy it is to forget that we have an adversary who prowls about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. He wants to interrupt the intimacy we are called to in Christ, because that alone is our lifeline! We were intended to flow in these life-giving truths perpetually, not just some of the time! Please bask with me in the following words of Christ found in John 15:9:
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.
The flow of the Spirit runs counter to the world’s flow. The world urges us to go out and grab all that we can to make ourselves more. God urges us to let go of our striving, to be still and to know that I am God. (Psalm 46:10)
The Courage to Be Corrected (Pruned), the Courage to Dream Again
But what do we do when something that felt life-giving is cut out of our lives? When the flow of something enjoyable is taken away? We all go through pruning at some point. It is required for the health of a plant, and ours too! Tremendous energy can go into maintaining a direction that the Father didn’t intend for us. It isn’t always a matter of sin, but sometimes just of focus.
Having the courage to dream again, especially after deep disappointment has taken place, which can accompany pruning, is a beautiful act of faith. The very challenges that can arise when we take our first cautious steps in the direction of our dreams can be exactly what He’s allowed in order to build muscle, grit, and resolve. We need to ask the Holy Spirit to guide our thinking, our feelings, our healing.
He wants to help you make sense of the times something untenable seems to raise its ugly head, and whether from the past or a present difficulty, “He reveals to heal.” He reveals to heal. He prunes us because He loves us, and knows what we are meant to be!
Everything that happens to us is Father-filtered. Some of us have had staggering burdens to bear. But Christ wants to come alongside with his yoke that is easy, and his burden that is light. The way things are today are not the way they need to stay! Writer Graham Cooke paraphrases the importance of having our minds renewed by the Spirit of God this way: “If all your thinking has brought you to a place you don’t like, have another thought!” We aren’t our minds! I like to think of our brains, rather frankly, as a puppy in obedience training. Second Corinthians 10:5 says:
We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
Again, there is no condemnation. We wouldn’t be told that if we didn’t need reminding.
The parable of the sower is often used to describe seekers who have not yet crossed the line of faith into abiding belief in Christ as Lord. But I’d like to suggest that it can also be a metaphor describing the condition of our being with regard to our life callings. May the seed of His word and leading be cultivated in deep, nutrient-rich soil, to bring a great harvest.
A key component to healthy soil is rotting organic material! “Yuck!” as my three year old likes to say with zeal. But that is just what it needs to be nutritious and conducive to growing other things. The losses, difficulties and learning experiences we have that reveal things we’d rather not see can actually make us stronger and humbler as we allow the lessons learned to inform how we respond in the times to come! They are not a waste if we let our Gardener use them. Nothing is wasted.
No matter what life has dealt you to this moment, it doesn’t matter what you’ve lost: what matters is that you’ve been found. The question is, what have you and I been found for?
Well, at the very least we can rest assured it isn’t so we can look back at our past and cringe. The enemy of our souls wants us to feel indebted to mistakes and sins committed, whether our own or against us. It can be easy to dial into the voice of the accuser, whose common ploy is to heap us with shame, or with fear, to the point that we withdraw from others and go into hiding.
We may not feel it at such times, but the unconditional love and acceptance of God is ceaselessly flowing for us. Our enemy is called an angel of light because he likes to try to mimic the voice of God, and will use guilt and shame to pull us out of fellowship with the Father and with others. He is a deceiver. The truth we need to reconcile with at such times, out of our own incapacity to deal with what we are powerless to fix or to control, is that God is for us, He is never against us! There is no pointing finger of accusation any more! Mercy has triumphed over judgment, and that is why we have been enabled to walk in a spirit of forgiveness. It can take time, but the process is what sets us free.
Romans 8:1 reminds us: Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
We know we have been brought into the family of God not because of any good we can do, but because of His goodness and grace. But we haven’t been saved just so we can go to heaven: if that were the case, God would have ended our earthly lives at the point of salvation, and whisked us off to heaven! We’ve been set apart for an amazing purpose. If you remain (abide) in me and my words remain (abide) in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. (John 15:7-8) What happens is that our greatest desire becomes to do what He wants! And what He wants, He will accomplish. He wants to wash our hearts clear and clean of lesser desires. He wants us to go with the flow—His flow!
I love the words of Paul in Philippians 3:12-14:
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
He doesn’t expect us to run our race with perfection, but with persistence! As Paul goes on to say:
Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.
Paul admitted he hadn’t “arrived” yet, and he wasn’t afraid to admit it.
There is a grace when we are humble enough to admit we are in process, we are in flux! And the truth is that we all are! So what is our response, especially when we feel there’s been starting and stopping, in essence, a greatly interrupted flow?
But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
God loves you and knows you through and through, and you are incomparable! He delights in you!
In closing:
Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life. (Proverbs 4:23)
He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’ (John 7:38)
That flow? Ultimately, it is coming from you, and it’s coming from me. All…because of Him. Let’s go with the flow—His perfect, nurturing, life-giving flow.