Los Brazos de Dios

From the time I was three-ish to the time I was six-ish, my family lived on the banks of the Brazos River in Waco. That river figures in to some of my early memories…fishing with my dad, swimming with my best friend who lived a little further down the river, and the time it flooded and came all the way up to our back door. As I grew older I learned that the full name of the river in Spanish is “Los Brazos de Dios”. The Arms of God. Is that not a cool name for a river?

A few years ago, I experienced what can best be described as a very dry time in my faith. I can’t say that I lost my faith or ever stopped believing in God, but I found myself in a place where faith had lost meaning to me. I knew but I didn’t feel anything, and that led to some doubting, questioning, and even anger towards God. I felt like—and I know this is a much-used metaphor but it’s so accurate—I felt like I was wandering in a desert. A vast, empty, silent desert. It was the silence that angered me so much. I was praying, begging God to just listen to me, to let me know that he was listening, to give me some direction, and to just be present in my life. But there was nothing but silence.

Occasionally I would catch a glimpse of his presence, I would see him working in someone else’s life, and I would be refreshed, if only briefly. It was like, wandering in that desert, I had come across a stream. But a mere stream wasn’t good enough. I wanted to find the river, the source of God’s mercy and grace. I wanted to see God working in my life and speaking to me. And in my obstinate independence, I decided to strike out and find it on my own. Kind of a silly thing to do, really. I should have just followed the stream. It probably would have led me to the river a whole lot faster than I’d get there on my own.

Eventually, that’s what I did end up doing…following the stream. And God led me to the river, and for me, it was a spiritual Brazos river, the Arms of God. I threw myself in and found that it’s only in the Arms of God, in the depths his Love, and Mercy, and Grace, that there was relief from the dryness. For a while there was still silence, but I know now, looking back, that it wasn’t really silence. God was still present in my life, he was still speaking to me, but he was teaching me through different methods than he had previously used. He was teaching me to walk on my own, to rely on him rather than my own emotions, and to listen to him in a different way.

Is the dryness gone? No, not completely, but I find that God does lead me to places of Peace and Joy. He is renewing me, and I'm trying to be patient and stay out of the way of him working in my life. I'm not very good at patience, but I know that is what he is calling me to be right now.

"I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh....They will be my people, and I will be their God." --Ezekiel 11:19-20