The Rio Grande

A Word For Living

May 15, 2012

Crossing the Rio Grande between Del Rio, Tx. & Ciudad Acuna.

The Rio Grande River is one of the twenty-five longest rivers in the world, and the fifth longest in North America.  Its headwaters are 12,000 feet above sea level in the San Juan Mountains along the Continental Divide in Colorado.  It cuts through New Mexico and meanders to the Gulf of Mexico forming a natural boundary between Mexico and Texas.  Called Rio Bravo, in Mexico, it is kept alive in Western lore through movies, music, and literature.

The Rio Grande holds a special place in my own heart because it is across that boundary that I’ve traveled many times with groups seeking to share Jesus Christ in a personal way to people long enslaved by a false theology.   To see people who have labored without assurance, always hoping they could somehow placate God enough  to enter His presence, suddenly find peace with Holy God and freedom to live for Him is exhilarating.   I return from such trips exhausted, but somehow refreshed and renewed. 

But more and more I’m coming to realize that there at boundaries here, at home, which separate truth and false theology.  You see, everyone has a theological position.  The atheist, the agnostic, the hedonist, the satanist, and the materialist all act out their belief about God in the philosophy which drives their lives.  It is quite easy for me to look across the river and see the theological error which abounds, but now I must look at friends, associates, and loved ones with the same discernment and understand that they, too, are enslaved.  

Help me, Dear Lord, to exercise the gift of discernment as I go about the doings you have prepared for me.  Help me, to see the need of those You bring across my path, and give me the wisdom to share Your Good News in such a way as to cause them to realize their condition so that they might cry out to You for salvation.   This prayer, O Lord, I give on my behalf and behalf of all who read it, in the name Jesus Christ who purchased me with His blood.

©                       2012                Mike Rasberry