Living in the memory of a past revival? Or waiting for the overflow from a future one? It’s time to get into the stream of the Spirit of God!
“It sez ‘ere in the paper, Blue, most 4-wheel drive, off-road vehicles rarely leave the highway.”
“Yair?”
“Yair. ‘Shunning blowflies and bulldust’, it sez, ‘the majority of us Aussies cling to the coastline’.”
“Too right. Like a scared goanna to a dry gumtree. Uluru is too long a drive, mate, so they built one closer, and called it the Sydney Opera House. You can’t climb it, they said, but at least you can go inside.”
“It goes on to say, ‘They’ve replaced the Outback with the Great Outdoors, which to city folk means a picnic in the park or a barbeque in the backyard.’ Whaddaya reckon, Blue?”
“Y’know, I reckon most Matilda-singing townies wouldn’t know a billabong if they waltzed right into one.”
“Dead right, mate.”
* * * * * * *
Not quite right, Blue. Most Aussies know that a billabong is a waterhole, filled by an overflowing creek or river, and often holding water long after the stream itself has dwindled or dried up. We also know that a billabong makes a pretty good camping spot.
Trouble is, many Aussies camp by the billabong so long that they lose sight of the river itself. They get into a bit of a backwater and end up right out of the mainstream. I’m speaking figuratively, of course, about spiritual billabongs, and the tendency of many Christians to live their lives around secondary issues.
Believers who are out of the mainstream of church life can’t see that the river of revival is rising. Secluded from the flow of the Spirit, swag unrolled, billy on the boil, they’ve become billabong believers.
Little more than half of all Pentecostals attend church. Despite being born again, water baptised and Spirit filled, they’ve dropped out of fellowship, don’t take communion, and rarely contact church friends.
This is not to say that they don’t pray, read their bibles, or live good lives. Just that, for one reason or another, be it pastoral neglect, public offense, personal problems – the list is endless – they’ve retreated from regular church fellowship. In distancing themselves from the slow flow of church life, they’ve become billabong believers.
Perhaps it’s not strange that Waltzing Matilda and Clancy Of The Overflow are two great Aussie icons. The first has for its setting a billabong, the second an arid outback area with water-courses that flow only in the rainy season, and then overflow, turning dry flatlands into shimmering lakes, and refilling billabongs.
Unlike most countries, Australia has few great rivers. We’ve grown accustomed to the extremes of flood and drought, river and billabong, dry creek bed and overflow.
Christians, too, have learned to live with extremes: predictable Sunday services and unexpected visitations; perspiration and inspiration; spiritual droughts and torrential Torontos.
Those of us who’ve been around for a while have seen the rivers rise many times. In the 60’s the “healing waters” flowed; in the 70’s the charismatic renewal overflowed. Many were carried away with “dancing in the Spirit” (if you didn’t do it, you weren’t in it). In the 80’s we learned how to flow in the anointing; in the early 90’s the prophetic. Nowadays, caught helplessly in the Divine current, we simply flow – laughing as we go!
When a river overflows its banks, the billabongs fill. As it subsides, they become the only certain water supply, until the next flow. Some churches are billabongs. But if a billabong is a source, a river is a resource, for it rises again and again. Churches that aren’t in the flow just live on the overflow.
I’ve met Christians who are still camped by what God did 50 or more years ago. “We’ve tried different churches, but none of them has what we experienced in _______ under the ministry of ______________.” Some of their billabongs are getting pretty low, and a lot of nasty bugs breed in still water! These Christians need to believe for a fresh flow of the river!
We all need to get our minds off the billabong and onto the river. “There is a river, the streams of which shall make glad the city of God.” (Psalm 46:4) Jerusalem, the onetime city of God, had no river – the psalmist was referring to the life of God, free-flowing and everlasting, that was His people’s constant supply.
That same river now flows out of the innermost being of every believer. (John 7:38) It’s not a quiet billabong – more like a river in flood! This “sunburnt” country of ours really needs that kind of flow.
Clancy Of The Overflow, discerning drover that he was, would no doubt have appreciated such a river. Maybe he went searching for it, and that was why his mates wrote, with a thumbnail dipped in tar, “Clancy’s gone a droving, and we don’t know where he are.”
* * * * * * *
“It sez ‘ere, Blue, that if we could get some of the water up north to flow back beyond the ranges, instead of into the sea, the Outback would become a veritable garden.”
“Bound to happen one day, mate. Just need to find the right river, that’s all.”