Talking of the Waterfall, Walking to the Waterfall

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So you are setting out to meet the lion at the head of the waterfall.

The waterfall of joy, which satisfies the heart’s desires. The waterfall of refreshment. The waterfall of delight and rest.

·      * *

But the way is long and sweaty, and there are temptations everywhere. You look down and see gold--fool’s gold, real gold? Should you forget the waterfall, and investigate?

You meet people whose life is working perfectly well. They don’t believe in no waterfall, they tell you.

People who started out with you are now rich and famous. They have no longer look for waterfalls; they just enjoy their life.

* * *

And as you continue climbing up to the waterfall, you see the hucksters: people who have become rich and famous and celebrated preaching about the waterfall, singing about the waterfall, writing and blogging about the waterfall, running conferences about the waterfall. Like serious money, fame, adulation.

Have they really reached the waterfall? Drunk of it? Or is talking and writing about more rewarding?

You do not know. All you know is that at the waterfall a man once said there was life in its fullness. And you have quite got that yet. There was peace which the world cannot take away. You would like peace to penetrate your personality still more. There is the joy which no one can take away. Oh, you want to live in that joy. At the waterfall, you will never thirst again. Oh, and you are restless.

You know you speak well, you write well. You already know so much about that waterfall. It would be easy to just stop where you are, and preach, speak, write, sing, blog and tweet about the waterfall. Instead of the long, arduous solitary slog uphill to the waterfall!

Talk eloquently about the waterfall. Bask in all the attention ad money and fuss and power and admiration. 

No one will know that you haven’t actually drunk of the waterfall of joy and peace and fullness.

No one except you, and the lion who lives at the waterfall

* * *

Forbid it, Lord.

Christian writing, blogging, speaking, song-writing which is not based in utter honesty is a waste of time.

It is telling other people about a waterfall we have heard tell of, but have not yet reached. Or of a waterfall we once drunk of, but no longer do. Worse, it is talking about the birds, mammals, trees and flowers on the way to the waterfall, instead of the waterfall itself

We have given up walking the walk for talking the talk.

Forbid it, Lord, that we whose trade is words ever substitute writing, speaking or blogging of you for serious time spent with you at your waterfall of delight.

May our delight in using words well never compromise our delight in you, the Word who was before all things, and in whom all things hang together.