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A faithful presence of love in the absences of our city.

An Abundant Fountain

an ever - flowing fountain

Hey City Pres,

Last week, Emily and Josh did a great job introducing our word of the year this year — Deeper. Emily wrote, “When we survey the year ahead of us, and the things we are asking for, the things we’ve been asking for, we will again hear, ‘Abide.’ But the abiding this year gets to come from the Lord’s abundance of provision, and I think we’ll ultimately get to hear, ‘Deeper.’”

So what does this mean for us in practice? Well, I want you to think of this in the following areas —

Going Deeper into the love of God
Going Deeper in your friendships and community
Going Deeper in your mission and calling

We will unpack each of these in the coming weeks. But the first thing I want you to hear is that God is a deep, deep well from which we can draw to go deeper ourselves. God often describes himself as a fountain. Consider Psalm 36:

They drink their fill of the abundance of Your house;
And You give them to drink of the river of Your delights.
For with You is the fountain of life;
In Your light we see light.

Instead of drawing upon this abundance, I think we approach Him and life with a mindset of scarcity. Look around — inflation, covid, war and rumor of war — needs are everywhere. Often, these needs encroach upon us, and we feel hemmed in and closed off. I can’t do anymore. There is something very real about our finiteness. We know too much and can’t do much with all that we know. So we hibernate, or vent, or pour another round, or hunker down. Deep down, we know that the knowledge of another thing implicates us in that thing, or at least takes up thought energy about that thing; we also know that we can’t do anything about that thing. Lots of these things aren’t in my locus of power or influence. They are out there somewhere. So, hunkering down feels safe. It cocoons us from all those needs out there. From this place, we think, “If my energies are this scarce, and my time this full, then imagine how Patty or Jenny or Tom feel. They have way more stuff to deal with than me.”

This point of view then infects our understanding of God. We fail to remember that God is as the Psalmist describes: an abundant fountain, a river of delights, a full house, a radiant light. The Psalmist knows God never operates out of scarcity. Where we must begin with Deeper is recognizing the ever flowing depths of the fountain of God. He is living water, because it is always abundant and always flowing. Scarcity mindset keeps us from going deeper, because we are afraid the safety net either isn’t there or doesn’t go deep enough. We won’t risk, because we can’t. We can’t possibly risk such things. There might not be anything left. There might not be any left for me. We are all like Goldilocks lamenting lost porridge, broken chairs, and occupied beds. But God always has room and always makes room. He is an overflowing fountain. Maybe Audio A can help us. We Gen X kids know it, so maybe we can help our Millennials and Gen Zer’s by reminding them of this song. You too, Baby Boomers. Sing with me:

It's a big big house
With lots and lots a room
A big big table
With lots and lots of food
A big big yard
Where we can play football
A big big house
Its my Father's house

This is what the Psalmist is calling us to sing. God is deeper still. God is wider still. God is longer still. God is farther still. His basin is full. Even when He gives and gives and gives — there is still cattle on a thousand hills. We must know this about our God if we will ever venture to go deeper. His grace is abundant. It is a gift that keeps and keeps and keeps giving. There truly are 10,000 charms hidden inside of Him, so we can, “venture on Him and venture wholly.” We must begin here if we will venture on going deeper into His love, or deeper with our friends and people who make up this community, or deeper into ourselves and our sins and fears, or deeper into our missional call, into our work and into our city.

This week, I want you to ponder some of the ways you operate with a scarcity principle instead of an ever flowing fountain. Be curious and not judgmental with this question. Ask why is it that I fail to go deeper in some of these ways? What safety nets of my own making do I create? What fears paralyze me? And then reflect on the abundance that can be found in Christ. How deep is the Father’s love? How full is His gift of grace? What if I do this, or that? Will it ever run dry?

Paul does this as he ends his reflection on the Gospel that he preaches in Romans 11:33:

“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!”



Let’s start to stick our toes in the water of God’s fountain and venture out into the deep water with Him this year.