First things first

                                               

Hello, come in.  Now that you've been led to the Brook of the Willows, don’t hurry off until the reason you came is made clear to you. I’ll start by telling you what Brook of the Willows isn't. It isn't some mystic place where all your problems take wings and fly away. You won’t be given a set of rules or steps to follow promising you that if you practice them all will be well. In fact, you will not find a quick How-To here. So already, you might be asking yourself then what am I here for? You’re here for a relationship.

Maybe you woke up this morning and asked yourself, what is the answer to this problem I’m facing? Where can I go to find some release? How can I make the pain stop, or will it ever? Will I ever have a day that these feelings aren't a part of my day? Will the things I continually think that bring me pain repeatedly, ever go away? Or maybe you thought you were just web surfing and ended up here at Brook of the Willows and you don’t have a pressing need at the moment, but you might sooner or later.

If you have ever asked yourself any of these questions or are asking them now, you won’t find a solution here. Please don’t stop reading, there’s more.  Solutions only work for a period of time or mask the problem. What you’re going through might be gone for a day or an hour or a few minutes, but then when you least expect it, it rears its ugly head and sucks you into the whirlwind all over again. So looking for a permanent solution is futile. If you came here, something in you must have thought that you might find something to ease your heart, if for only a few minutes. Or that you might actually find a key, a method, teaching, or a step-by-step series of actions that you could take to reach your goal, the goal of release.

I’m not going to offer you a solution; I don’t have one. Believe me; I searched for one for years. Most of those years were after I became a Christian. That might sound strange, but it’s true. Christianity is often perceived as a method. A system that is no different from any other ‘course’ a person takes to better themselves. I didn't need to better myself; I needed to find a way to stop being the me who was born into sin into this world. The fallen me. That me who had suffered tremendously. That me who listened and tried to learn from every book, tape, teacher, sermon, conference, or move of the spirit. Then one day as I was listening to a popular teacher on TV who was conducting another of their conventions and the camera scanned the faces of the audience, I didn't see people, I saw helpless hurting sad sheep. 

I saw the same look in all of their eyes. A look of desperation, hoping that this time, this teaching, this conference, this ‘move’, they’d find the answer they came looking for. I saw their pain and felt my own. I was a part of this body of Christ that was all trying to do the right thing, say the right words, or pray the right prayer, although I wasn't physically in the crowd, I was there emotionally. At the end of it, people were interviewed being asked what they’d be taking away from this powerful convention. They each proudly held up the speaker’s tapes, books, refrigerator magnet, and coffee mug with the catchphrase, they’d been repeating for the last however many days written on it in their hands, and said, “this has been the best convention ever.” It was hard not to believe the promising expression on their face or the triumphant ring in their voice proclaiming that what they’d just heard and experienced they would now be taking home and finally, finally things would be different. That this time, this experience, this move of the spirit was what they’d been searching for and now that they’d heard it and had all the paraphernalia to take back home with them, things would be different.

As I sat listening to one glorious testimony after the next I too wanted to believe for them and myself. Then a woman being interviewed said something that brought me to tears because I knew the truth that those words held. She said, “I’ll be back next year.” It made me wonder how many of those people in this crowd had also been in last year’s crowd and the year before that? How many came out of other conventions proclaiming the same victory? And how many in this gathering, now going home with this set of books or tapes having spent hours of worship, would be back next year? You won’t find books with ‘the’ answer in them, here. You won’t find solutions. You won’t find a plan here. I don’t have one as I said. I know it’s hard not to want an easy fix. We so badly want to ‘fix’ what it is that is hurting us. But, if you tarry here, with your whole heart the One who drew you here you will give you what you came looking for.

The Brook of the Willow is a quiet place to come to when the chaos around you is deafening. When your heart can’t take another moment of the madness, it can lead you to a promise. A promise that I found when I went looking for a release from the pain. It wasn't what I was expecting; I too wanted a ‘fix’. What I found instead was that I’d been looking at it all wrong. I’d been running after a fix instead of the Fixer himself.

This scripture stopped me in my tracks. Jeremiah 29:13 And ye shall seek me, and find me when ye shall search for me with all your heart. (KJV)

I don’t know what it is that brought you here right now. I don’t know if you’re ready to search for the only One who has what you need. But that you are here might be just the beginning. If you’re ready to admit that it’s not an it or a what that you’re desiring but that it’s a Person then you've come to the right place. Plain and simple. You might think that you stumbled into the Brook of the Willow, but you didn't, He led you here like the Good Shepard that he is.

Now that you are here, take a minute and let your heart rest. Take a deep breath. Sit down and let the quiet permeate your tired spirit. Stop being in a hurry. The world around us has made us frantic. The Lord Jesus wants to offer you himself, and how he’ll do this starts here, Psalm 46:10 Be still and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen; I will be exalted in the earth. (KJV) 

Try this. Be still. You might not have been still for a very long time, if ever. We don’t know how to be really still. We’re not taught to be still. We live in a world that says, “Run! Run faster!”

How long did it just last? How long were you able to manufacture stillness just now? Probably not very long. Your mind might have paused for a few seconds, but then it kicked right back in. No matter how hard we try, how determined we are, how much we try to empty our mind of racing thoughts, they come back to all of us. So, you’re not alone. This isn't a new problem; it’s been around for as long as man has been created. Paul, a noted disciple of the Lord had the same problem.

Romans 7:15, 19, 24-25. 15 For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. 19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil, which I would not, that I do. (KJV)

Here is Paul; someone who you’d think would not have had to struggle with old habits of his flesh, right? After all, he’d been chosen by God, had a life-changing experience with God, and was anointed by God to teach the church. In this word, Paul isn't just complaining about his problem, he’s telling us that he understands what it feels like to want to stop doing something so badly and yet finds himself unable to stop it. But, he doesn't stop there. He shows us his full pain by honestly crying out, 24 O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? (KJV)

Had Paul not found the answer, he’d most likely be still crying out for the same thing you and I are crying for. But, he exposed the above truth in order to show us that with all the events that had taken place in his life he too, was still trapped in the same dying body with all the sin still intact. But, he found The answer himself and is about to reveal it to those who are listening. Are you ready?

25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind, I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. (KJV)

Did you see it? Read it again. Do you see the open door? Did you see what Paul just said? Did you see what he’s saying? How do you see, what someone is saying?  Don’t you mean ‘hear’? Look at it one more time. You might be saying I didn't get it. Or maybe you think what you saw was, oh I get it, I have not been using my mind right, I’m not trying hard enough. No, Beloved, read it again. When Paul cried out asking who can deliver him from himself, he shows us that he finally understood when he began his answer with, one word, THROUGH.

I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Take note of the punctuation, it's very important. The period is there for a reason. Paul finished telling us what he found as the answer to his cry and put a period. It indicates that the thought is finished. The rest of the verse is the light bulb coming on. Oh, I SEE it now!

So then, (in other words) with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. Paul isn't saying oh I get it now I need to serve the Lord with my mind. If I just do that I’ll get free from this sin that so easily besets me. No, Paul is stating, “I get it now, I've been trying to do this myself. I can serve the Lord all day long in my mind, but the flesh will continue to serve the flesh.”

Let me ask you an honest question. How has that been working for you? As hard as I tried and as honest as I thought I was being in wanting to do everything I thought the Lord was asking me to do, I still failed. I had to come to the Brook of the Willows myself. Sit down, get quiet, and really seek to understand what the word was saying. Then I saw the – through.

It still makes me want to cry when I read it again. Thank God, that through Jesus is what I was looking for. I had him, but I was still trying to live the Christian life myself, not living it through him in me doing the living.

Galatians 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless, I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (KJV)

Paul never tired of teaching this truth. He says to the church. “Yes, for all sense and purposes I believed myself to have been crucified with Christ, but I’m still living here. (Aren't we all?) Isn't that what brought you here today? You still have a sin full life that just won’t stop. Please hear what Paul is saying, “Wait; now it’s not me still living this life in the flesh, it's Christ in me living it.”

I’ll always end what I write with the encouragement to stay here as long as you need to. Read it again if need be. As many times as you need. And when you do finally leave Brook of the Willow, take what the Lord has shown you.

If you truly gave your heart to God. Confessed with your mouth that Jesus was and is your salvation and the Holy Spirit came into your body and you accepted that fact, then you died. Right then and there. I died fifty years ago. I could have seen this then, but it took many more years for me to truly understand what God has written here. I don’t know why it takes some of us so long, but sadly, it does. Even when I thought I was seeking Him with all my heart, I was only seeking a solution.

After all the years of trying, by His grace, I'm getting to the end of myself. My moment of truth wasn't finally finding what I thought I’d been seeking as a way to live in this world but had the eyes of my understanding opened to see that I’ll never be able to live this life. It’s not possible. God didn't intend for me to live it apart from him but through him. And the only way that could happen was for the Living God through the Holy Spirit to now live within man.

“Yes, I’m still living, but the life I’m living now is God living His life through me.” Yes, Beloved, Faith brought him in and it’s by Faith that we believe that all that we read in the Word of this life with Christ that we are told we can have, we can have. So stop trying to do what isn't yours to do. And that’s where you start. You even need him to help you stop. In closing, God spoke this to me a long time ago. He said, “Susan, let me, let you let me.”

In other words, I even need him to help me let him, let me.

I pray that you leave now with the Person of Jesus, not another fix. I pray that He’ll lead you back whenever he desires. I bless you.