A river runs through them

“Like a river glorious is God’s perfect peace”—those lines from an old hymn came to mind as my husband pulled off the road to viewpoint above the Similakameen River in northern Washington state. Its Indian name means “treacherous waters,” though from this vantage it seemed a peaceful, albeit energetic, body of moving water.

In my exposure to classic hymns of the faith, I’ve realized that quite a number reference rivers. This isn’t surprising, considering how the Bible highlights two rivers in Eden, the Jordan in the Promised Land, and the River of Life in Heaven.

I recalled the rest of that hymn’s opening verse: “....perfect peace, perfect yet it floweth, fuller every day, perfect yet it groweth, deeper all the way.” We’d driven to this valley because things were not very “perfect” at home. Widespread forest fires, set by lightning a month earlier, had shrouded our valley in smoke deemed very hazardous to people in “sensitive groups.” That included me, an asthmatic. Even to go out to the mailbox, I used an industrial particulate mask. For health, we just had to get away. And so we found our way to this remote valley and lovely river.

Often back at home, on sunny days, we’ll walk a trail adjacent to our own Columbia River. At such times, snatches of these old hymns come to me with their metaphors of how God’s wisdom and love are deeper and fuller.

I find stories behind hymns fascinating, and here are some of those for “river” hymns.

“Like a river glorious” was penned by Miss Frances Havergal, a prolific lyricist and devotional writer despite fragile health. Complications from a cold once left her so ill that doctors thought she’d die--this being before the discovery of antibiotics. Instead of fretting, she told her friends, “If I am really going, it is too good to be true.” This hymn, written after her recovery, was among more than 80 from her pen, including “Take My Life and Let it Be,” and “Who Is on the Lord’s Side?”

Early American slaves, who strongly identified with Bible stories of Israel’s enslavement in Egypt, longed for their own journey to freedom across a political Jordan. They gave us “Deep River” and “I’ve got peace like a river” (which cites Isaiah 48:18).

Horatio Spafford used that phase in a hymn written after his four daughters perished when their ship went down. Only his wife survived. “When peace like a river” opens the hymn best known for its lines, “It is well, it is well with my soul.”

Eighteenth century English preacher Samuel Stennett was also inspired by “Jordan’s strormy banks,” seeing it as a symbol of passing to heaven. Although the Israelites’ entrance into the Promised Land only meant more warfare to conquer it—and there will be no conflict in Heaven—many still are comforted by this sense of finally “coming home.” Who of us doesn’t yearn for, as his hymn expresses it, “that happy place...when I shall see my Father’s face”?

Welsh preacher William Williams, who traveled an estimated 100,000 miles on foot and horseback in the mid-1700s, wrote an estimated 800 hymns for his people. One of the few translated from Welsh, “Guide me, O Thou Great Jehovah,” has a concluding stanza that begins, “When I tread the verge of Jordan,” and addresses fears of death before landing “safe on Canaan’s side.”

Robert Lowry, a professor of literature, editor and pastor of several large Baptist churches, was inspired by Heaven’s river of life, “clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God” (Rev. 22:1-2). The words and tune to “Shall We Gather at the River” came to him one hot July afternoon in 1864 as he rested and had visions of Heaven. Some of his other 500 hymns include “I Need Thee Every Hour” and “Low in the Grave He Lay.”

I know there are other hymns that allude to rivers. They remind us that God often speaks in metaphors from nature to help us understand His attributes and ways. Even a body of water, laden with silt and home to fish, all of which He created, speak of Him.

Heaven: The Greatest Home Makeover--Day 27

THE GARDEN
“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.” –Revelation 22:1-2

Would your “perfect home” have a garden for food or flowers? Are you inspired by another garden, maybe one acclaimed by travel brochures? Could it be at the home of a friend skilled in coaxing loveliness out of flowers, trees, rocks and water? As you strolled the gardens, did you savor the colors, textures, sounds and fragrance? Or was the best part just the peaceful beauty that spoke nobly of God as Creator?

Was your favorite garden on a grander scale? Did you pull off a mountain highway to drink in the view of a mountain peak, its craggy shoulders softened by snow like an ermine cape? Did you pause in view of the bridal veil froth of a waterfall shooting from the top of a cliff? Was it the forest, where you stopped to listen to birds chatter? Or did you stand on a beach to watch the setting sun ooze tangerine onto the clouds and water?

In earth’s beautiful places, we see God’s shadow. That’s why the Bible says that “since creation God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen” (Rom. 1:20). Nature shouts the reality of a divine Creator. Gardens stir up our longings for God. He began human history in a garden that He planted. We know it by the name “Eden,” Hebrew for “delight.” Scholars say it probably was located in present-day Iraq. There, God enjoyed His plant and animal creations in company with the people He created, Adam and Eve, charged with being gardeners. In Eden they had beauty, shelter, pleasure, food, and reflection.

Then sin ruined the perfect garden. Adam and Eve’s disobedience closed its entrance and removed them from daily intimacy with God. The ground was cursed, and “gardening” became a weary battle with thorns and thistles (Gen. 3:17-18). In our times, those “thorns and thistles” wear names like pestilence, drought, fire, flood, tornados, hurricanes, complex laws, economic woes, and the energy crisis. Deep inside, we still long for that garden. We want to know God fully and have the incomparable pleasure of tending His perfect creation. It will never happen on our terms. It will, though, on God’s.

He began with a garden. He will end with it. The Bible says the earth as we know it—the battered, polluted, evil-stained place where Satan did His destructive work—will be burned up and purified, and there will be a “new Heaven and a new earth” (Rev. 21:1). The Greek word used for “new,” kainos, means “new as to form or quality, of a different nature from what is contrasted as old” (4). It will be “new” in a new way. The “New Jerusalem” will come down from Heaven, so beautiful that even descriptions comparing its loveliness to pure gold and precious gemstones don’t do it justice (Rev. 21:18-21). Within will be elements of a garden.

The Tree of Life, the centerpiece of Eden, will be there. (Eden’s “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil,” the sad site of Adam and Eve’s sin, is gone.) Somehow, the Tree of Life will straddle a pure river, bearing a different crop every month as evidence of God’s abundant care. Its leaves will be “for the healing of the nations” (Rev. 22:2)—for in Heaven there will be no more global conflict. That pure river will come from God’s throne. Hadn’t Jesus connected Himself with “Living Water” (John 4: 10, 14; John 7: 37, 38)? The book of Revelation ends before telling us any more. But we can be confident that there’s more, much more. Why? Because God can do it! Many believe He will do it again on our planet, purified by fire, ready for a fresh start without sin.

If God had given more detail of Heaven’s garden, some might have tried to cultivate a similar garden on earth, advertising it as a “must-see” place of pilgrimage. But greed for profit would taint it. And its owners would still fight the effects of Adam’s sin: weeds, pests, and bad weather.

Heaven’s garden—however, whatever, and wherever God creates it—will surpass anything now known for delight. The eternal ache we sensed in admiring earthly places of beauty will find satisfaction. We’ll remember: “The Heavens declare the glory of God, and the skies proclaim the work of his hands” (Psalm 119:1).

Thoughts of Heaven’s garden also return us to words of an old hymn (2). Imagine coming there alone, the dew glistening on the roses, then walking and talking with the One who says, “You are my own.” What indescribable joy!

Prayer: Father, the days my heart wishes for peace and tranquility are really my longing for your perfect Garden. Thank you reminding me it’s ahead. Amen.

(1) W.E. Vine, An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words Vol. III (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell, 1940), p. 109.
(2) The 1912 hymn “In the Garden” by C. Austin Miles.