There is a River whose streams make glad the city of God 1
There is a River whose streams make glad the tree living for Him
A desert—
Look across the horizon
Observe with your eye the desert expanse
Which, at the superterranean level, seems surely forlorn
The cracks like wrinkles run deep across the surface
An engraved master network of deep, dry fissures
Together piercing the torrid air with their inaudible cry:
Empty! Thirsty! Give a drink!
Hear with your ear the raspy pants of the land
O if the dirt rifts could lift up a voice
How horrid the cry!
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?
My tears have been my food day and night,
While they continually say to me,
“Where is your God?”2
Where is that River?!
I am a myrtle tree planted by this River
I grow branches and blossoms teeming with Life
I once was lost but now I’m found
I once was parched but now I’m quenched
Let him who thirsts come3
Come near to my branches and hear my mystery:
Look closer—
Look beneath the horizon surface
Observe with your spirit’s eye the true expanse
Hear with your spirit’s ear the trickling streams
An intricate network of subterranean streams
Which His hand has so delicately prepared and filled
Brooks and rivulets percolating far and wide
Just beneath the arid surface
Imbuing all the borders of the land and beyond
Let him who thirsts come
Reach your roots downwards to His depths
As deep calls unto deep at the noise of His waterfalls
Let your tears no longer be your food day and night,
While they continually say to you,
“Where is your God?”
The mystery lies in the unseen
Beneath the surface
What is known neither to senses nor thoughts
But to the spirit within
Where His rivers run mightily, steadily, unfailingly
For His waters never fail
His River never fails
I am a myrtle tree
Rooted in the River of Life
My streams now are subterranean
But one day they will flow abundantly for all to see
Superterranean streams they will become in time
Yet until then I rest every so peacefully in His mystical hidden streams