The River That Got Deeper as It Went

Do you know what God showed Ezekiel one day? A river.

It slipped out from under the door of God's own house, clear and bright, trickling down the steps and across the dry ground. Just a little water at first. A thread you could almost step over.

A man with a measuring line led Ezekiel out into the stream. They walked a little way, and the man measured. The water reached Ezekiel's ankles, cold and clean. Then they walked further.

Measure again. Knees now.

Further still. Up to his waist.

And then the river was so deep and so wide that Ezekiel could not walk in it at all. He could only swim. A river that began as a trickle, and grew, and grew, and would not stop growing. It got deeper the further it went.

Most rivers grow smaller as they go. They spread thin and tired and dry up in the sand. But not this one. This was God's river, and God's river only ever grows fuller.

And it was going somewhere. It was going to the dead place.

There was a sea down there where nothing could live. The water was so bitter and so salty that no fish ever swam in it, and nothing green ever grew along its shore. People called it the Dead Sea, because dead is what it was.

The river ran straight toward it.

When the river touched that bitter water, something happened that had never happened before. The dead sea came alive. The salt turned sweet. And fish, so many fish, more than anyone could count, came darting and flashing through water that had been still as a grave. Ezekiel had watched God do this before, in the valley where the dry bones stood up and breathed. God loves to bring dead things back to life.

And along both banks, where there had been only cracked and dusty ground, trees stood up. Fruit trees. Their leaves never wilted and their fruit never stopped, a fresh crop every single month. And the leaves were for healing, every leaf a small green medicine. Wherever the river went, things that were dying began to live.

Ezekiel looked, and his heart ached with how lovely it was. A whole world made well, with nothing bitter left in it and nothing sick the river had not reached.

But it was a promise standing far off, waving to him across the years.

Because one day a man would stand up in God's own city and call out, loud and glad, "If you are thirsty, come to me. Come and drink. And rivers of living water will flow out of you." That man was Jesus. He is the river. He always was.

And the river is rising still. It flows from him into the world even now, making bitter things sweet and dead things live. It is in you, if you have come to him.

And it is getting deeper as it goes. Ankles, then knees, then deeper than you can stand, all the way to the city of God, where the trees drop fresh fruit every month and the leaves heal everyone and nothing ever dies again.

One day you will wade into that river yourself, and when it is too deep to stand in, you will lift your feet and swim, and the water will carry you the rest of the way home.