"There is No Other Stream" - Living a Spirit-led Life with Our Gift of Free Will

I love the chapter in C.S. Lewis’ book, the Silver Chair, where Jill  (a friend of Eustace Scrubb, the Pevensies’ cousin)  arrives in Narnia, and upon looking for a drink of water, finds a stream, only to discover that the Great Lion is lying at the river’s edge, looking at her.  After a bit of conversation, Jill’s fears turn to desperation…

“I daren't come and drink," said Jill.
“Then you will die of thirst," said the Lion.
“Oh dear!" said Jill, coming another step nearer."I suppose I must go and look for another stream, then."
“There is no other stream," said the Lion.

Growing up in a Christian home, deeply rooted in my faith in God’s word since early childhood, I learned much about how we as humans can do nothing good on our own, and that we always need the Lord and His saving grace. I also heard and believed that we daily need to ask the Holy Spirit to guide our thoughts and actions. There have been many similar themes of “surrender” and “reckless abandon” circulating through the Christian music industry, media publications and the like; every time I even hear or see such words I am thrilled and I get chills all throughout. Why?

Because I am in love with Christ, and it is because He loved me that I love Him, and because He loves me that I have this desire to please him. I know that there is “no other stream”, as it were, no other living water besides Jesus. I want to surrender my all to Him. 

But what does that even mean? I’ve asked myself over the years. 

In the Bible we see that as Christians, we have instructions on how to life the life we’ve been called to; we must surrender ourselves and our worldly thoughts and passions to God every day, and do His will rather than the will of sinful men.

I have been to several churches where almost the entire sermon, worship service, and open-mic time are unplanned.  The people there believe that any words of worship will come to them as the Spirit leads and they share with the congregation what God reveals to them in that moment. Simply put, they just go with whatever God tells them. The stream flows freely. This is an amazing feat of faith, don’t you think? Yes, the service may appear like a holy, proverbial  “train wreck “ at times, but it has been my experience that the Spirit of God does move mightily in these places where He is invited. Many of the other organizations and churches I’ve been to have an outline of their service, and go according to schedule, and maybe leave a bit of room for a last-minute change if Holy Spirit’s prompts. But on average, the individual person must be willing to break out of the mold and risk looking silly if they feel called to share something or worship in a more “unconventional” manner.  The stream, the living water, is held in jars, brought out only when man deems it necessary. It is often deep inside my soul that I listen to the Holy Spirit’s quiet voice in these places. It is not like I myself feel the need to just break out in dance in church—not at all—but I do see many people coming to my current church with an expression of reservation. It seems as though they feel it is expected and required to be inactive during the service and to follow up by working with zeal outside the church. Some churches, denominations and people groups go so far as to say that the Holy Spirit is no longer at work, that such miraculous interceptions stopped with the apostles. To them, the stream has dried up.

Now, I do not want the focus to be on the state of the American Christian churches (for there is much to be addressed on that topic alone). Rather, I am speaking of how the Spirit of God can direct our daily lives. Earlier I mentioned the frequency of the themes of “surrender” and “reckless abandon” in our Christian culture today. As I’ve been contemplating these themes lately, I’ve realized that this idea of the Holy Spirit’s direction somehow differs, without contradicting, the idea of surrendering daily to God’s will. I can best pose it to you as the question I initially asked myself:

“What would it look like for me to, while living out God’s will as defined in His word, be willing to do whatever the Holy Spirit directs me to do, every minute of every day?”

Wow. Our first reaction is to think that a life like this would look a little crazy. Maybe in a good way, but still crazy. A bit hairy. A bit scary, even. Honestly, who wants to lose all control of their life? Who wants to be flooded by a stream of living water that can’t even be explained? Who insists that someone else directs their own decisions? But that is what this really comes down to, isn’t it? No matter what your present or past beliefs are or have been about the working of the third member of the Trinity,  the decision really is all about control.

We have been given the gift of free will by a God who has a plan written for eternity.  (Aha…. a quote! Please, just stick with this: I’m sure it will all make sense soon.)

The concept of free will is complex, but I will state it as thus: as Christians, we have the freedom to choose between good and evil thoughts, words and practices. We make choices every day in our Christian walk, to either glorify God or please the human nature, to be constructive or destructive, to do what our flesh longs to do our do what God has commanded us to do in love.

So how does this all tie together with living a Spirit-led life?

Before we can grasp the idea of being led by the Holy Spirit, we need to have an understanding of who the Holy Spirit is, and only then can we see how He works in our lives. (A good article to read on this is linked below: )

http://www.truthmagazine.com/archives/volume35/GOT035115.html

In this post I am paralleling living a Spirit-led life to the concept of the one and only stream. This stream is living water. Aslan’s words, “There is no other stream”, are a comparison to God saying there is no other way of life than to know and obey His will and live according to the Spirit. So, I began by looking at how I could live my life guided by the Holy Spirit. Naturally, I haven’t come up with any practical application, because the truth is—and it may be tricky to accept this—the Holy Spirit is not practical.  He is a real being. I know that I might look like a fool.  A simple example of what I’ve always believed to illustrate obeying the prompting of the Holy Spirit is this: I’m in a public place, and I hear a voice telling me to go up and talk to someone. I may not know them. It may not be a public place, even. It could just be in the middle of a conversation, I am prompted to say something I wouldn’t have thought of saying myself. Now this is where discernment plays in:  we must be deeply grounded in God’s word and have an intimate relationship with Him to discern His voice and know when a thought is from Him.

Because of free will, we have the choice to surrender our lives to the Holy Spirit’s calling; when we surrender ourselves to the Spirit’s leading, we are saying that we surrender our free will to Him as well. The Holy Spirit moves in us by convicting us, and he also moves among us by leading us to do the abnormal, the unthinkable, and the impossible—all inside the will of God the Father. Being willing to do and say whatever the Spirit leads you to does not necessarily  mean doing a cartwheel in church or rattling off quotes that you never even heard of to a complete stranger, but it can mean that you will be called far beyond your comfort zone, and once out there, you might not have control. I’ve heard countless stories of people who have seen, spoken and done things that were completely outside their control, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. In fact, my Sunday school teacher once told me this story: In church one morning, she heard God say to her, “Go perform a cartwheel up front.” My teacher did, and after the worship service, a woman came up to her, crying. This woman was downhearted, disbelieving and wanted her life to be over.  She had told God that morning, “God, if you are so great, and you care about me, show me. I’ll have faith if I see you make someone perform a cartwheel up front.” I was told this story when I was eight years old, and it has stuck with me to this day. We have to realize that when we surrender our all to God, we aren’t saying we will do what He wants if it makes sense to us. Yes, we take captive every thought that comes into our mind and line it up with God’s truth, and we don’t act on human impulse, but we have to be willing to do whatever he calls us to do, trusting that His will and His strength will prevail.

I have lived much of my life relying on my own strength, unwilling to lose control of the one thing in my circumstances that I could control: myself.  And now this decision to live each day completely surrendered not only to God—living out his commandments, loving as He loved, making ethical decisions based on His truth and speaking in the manner he has instructed us to—but also to the divine leading of the Holy Spirit—listening to his voice, acting on His promptings, sharing the thoughts He gives and serving wherever He leads me to go—is still a mountain looming before me. I know that it’s not easy. It is risky. It is a stream of living water that I do not control, but that I cannot live without. I know now that there is no other stream. And I may not get to do everything I want to do. But as I make the choice through the God’s grace (and the free will I’ve been given) to daily surrender my plans and my will to God, the more I am making myself in tune with the Spirit, and the more His will shall become my will. To God be the glory, forevermore. Come, Holy Spirit…come…

“As for God, his way is perfect:
    The Lord’s word is flawless;
    he shields all who take refuge in him.
 For who is God besides the Lord?
    And who is the Rock except our God?
 It is God who arms me with strength
    and keeps my way secure.
 He makes my feet like the feet of a deer;
    he causes me to stand on the heights…” (from 2 Samuel 22)