On our household journey to the Canadian Rockies this summer time, we noticed quite a lot of rivers and streams. Our boys, Chet (4) and Ira (2), beloved throwing pebbles and rocks into these flowing waters each likelihood they obtained. It’s a common boyish intuition. I had it too at their age (I nonetheless have it, TBH).

As I watched them toss these stones into rocky river beds, I returned to a thought that hovered in my thoughts all through the journey, partially due to a tune referred to as “Whitewater” (by Zaac Decide) on our journey playlist. The lyrics start:

Time is a river, babe, transferring so quick
Over the banks of the our bodies we’ve got
Time is a river, babe, we don’t understand how deep
We wade in and get swept off our ft

Time is certainly like a river. It by no means stops flowing. It goes in a single course. The present carries us all, whether or not we prefer it or not.

Rock Piles within the River

The extra I contemplated the picture of the boys throwing stones into rivers, the extra I began to see: we’re the stones. The pebbles, awkwardly swept downstream in a muddy, violent present we will’t resist. We’re molded and formed, eroded and transported, by the drive of water we name time. And sooner or later, like each stone whittled down by sufficient years of liquid drive, we’ll turn out to be merely gravel and sand. Mud to mud (Eccles. 3:20).

Whereas we stay, although, we’re like stones dwelling within the fixed movement of time’s river. Generally, when the circulate is tranquil, we relaxation in a single place for a season. We construct neighborhood with different rocks, and we’re shaped as a lot by how we jostle towards one another as we’re by the drive of the water itself.

However then there are moments when the present is so swift and forceful that we’re abruptly dislodged from the rock pile we referred to as dwelling and displaced downstream in a dramatic relocation. These deluges at all times come extra abruptly than we like. Name them flash floods. Not often do we’ve got the possibility to say correct goodbyes to the stone comrades we sat with for a time. We blink and we’re each elsewhere within the river, lodged in with new rock piles for an additional momentary stretch.

The present carries us all, whether or not we prefer it or not.

The primary time I contemplated this metaphor was firstly of the summer time after I picked Chet up from preschool on his final day of the college 12 months. I knew what he may scarcely grasp—that his preschool playmates, the candy little pebbles who discovered themselves in the identical stream for about 9 months, would by no means be in the identical rock-pile neighborhood once more. And as Chet was beginning a brand new faculty within the fall, he’d most certainly by no means see most of these buddies once more.

So goes the cruel stream of time—detached to our human eager for permanence of place and other people. Simply once we connect to at least one, circumstances past our management transfer us on to a different.

Collectively, for a Time

I noticed later in the summertime—standing on the banks of the Athabasca, the Bow, the Blaeberry, and numerous different rivers and streams—that that is true of any neighborhood, together with the neighborhood of household. Kira and I are like two stones who discovered one another within the stream and fused collectively within the mud, changing into one bigger rock unit that has held collectively for 10 years so far (God prepared, for a lot of many years extra!). In these years we’ve damaged off three little mini rocks, and by God’s grace we’ve stored our little rock neighborhood collectively because the river strikes round us.

However I’m keenly conscious (as each dad or mum is) that this received’t final without end. Someday the river will scatter the stones of our youngsters, as they transfer on to kind and be shaped by different rocks. Right now Chet and Ira are throwing stones into rivers as toddlers. Perhaps the subsequent time we’re all in Canada collectively they’ll be youngsters—choosing up heavier rocks and chucking them into deeper waters. Then sooner or later quickly, they’ll be me: the dad watching his sons throw stones, repeating the primal cycle because the river strikes ever on.

Time is a river, babe, choosing up velocity
There’s by no means sufficient to take all that you just want
Time is a river, babe, and it’s sink or swim
No anchor will maintain as we’re carried inside

Finally, possibly 80 years therefore, the quintet previously generally known as the McCracken Household Rock Pile will probably be scattered sand and silt, a part of the river’s everlasting mattress quite than dancing with it in its fluid onward march. In 1,000 years, generations of our offspring could have handed down the river too, doubtless unaware of the rock kin from which they’ve damaged off and over which they’ve flowed.

Peace like a River

It’s not a tragic thought, to pay attention to the relentless river and the impossibility of anchoring someplace in it without end. Simply as I expertise a mysterious pleasure watching a river’s motion (aren’t all people instinctively drawn to the wonder and fact of flowing water?), I settle for with gratitude that my place within the river is as provisional and tenuous because the stone Chet picks up on the financial institution and throws into the present. I’m OK with this association—and with the in any other case crushing considered solely briefly sharing a journey with the valuable stones I name household and mates—for 2 important causes.

It’s not a tragic thought, to pay attention to the relentless river and the impossibility of anchoring someplace in it without end.

One, I do know the river will finish someplace, in a sea of tranquility and eternal relaxation (Heb. 4:1–11). Maybe the stones I knew, beloved, and at last misplaced on the journey will probably be there too. Perhaps we’ll share recollections of our respective cascading dramas that obtained us there and that generally overlapped.

Two, I belief the river’s supply. If I assumed the forceful present of time was only a random, purposeless circulate, there could be no comfort in surrendering to its drive. There could be solely despair and a determined swimming for the proverbial shore. However I do know the river has a supply, and a created starting, and that its path will not be aimless.

In that form of stream, nonetheless punishing the journey nonetheless is, I discover a measure of calm and luxury. It’s the serenity of realizing I’m on a path with a vacation spot, and so are my spouse, children, and everybody else I like and encounter. None of us can cease the circulate. But when we belief the supply and know there’s a vacation spot, we will benefit from the trip—protected passage to the stillest waters we’ll ever know, and an infinitely higher shore.