Drop by Sparkling Drop

--
 "Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise."

So go the first lines of one of my favorite hymns. It rightly characterizes my Heavenly Father as the "Fount of every blessing."

A fountain . . . a constant, gushing, rushing flow of water under enough pressure to launch it high into the air, making the beautiful arcing patterns we so enjoy watching. What is known, but isn't so easily noticed, is that the flow of a fountain is made up of millions of individual drops, all directed by the design of the fountain.

Blessing. I like blessings! Blessings never ceasing? Yes, please! I am so conditioned by my very BLESSED Western culture, and by the desires of my own flesh, to want a constant, gushing, rushing flow of blessings. Whether they be spiritual, physical, financial, emotional, personal, I love to be in a state of obvious blessing. Sometimes, especially right now in this time of recession, I am tempted to FEEL that the flow has been interrupted, that maybe something is wrong on the Fountain end of things.

NOT SO! C. S. Lewis, in the letter from which Up the Sunbeam got its name, talked about some of the things that can prevent us from noticing and properly experiencing God in the blessings He gives, both great and small. He points to "inattention" as one obstacle, and describes another obstacle as our tendency to enjoy the blessing but to "ignore the smell of Deity that hangs about it." He goes on to say, "A third obstacle is greed. Instead of saying 'This also is Thou,' one may say the fatal word Encore."

OUCH!! Shame on my greedy self! A fatal word indeed. The flow is NOT interrupted. There is NOTHING wrong with the Fountain! He has just shifted my perspective so I can notice His blessings drop by drop. When I notice each blessing and rightly inhale the scent of Divine love it brings to my senses, then my heart, like the hymn says, is tuned to grace, and I am compelled to sing "songs of loudest praise."

"As they make music they will sing, 'All my fountains are in You.'"
Psalm 87:7 NIV

Not only do I desperately need to notice each individual drop of blessing like a tiny liquid diamond, perfect and astounding in its own right, but I need to be more concerned with BEING a blessing than getting one. If God is this Fountain of Blessings, then the people of God must also be part of the motion of His blessing, flowing at the direction of the Fountain Himself.

I am reminded of one of my all-time favorite scenes and movie quotes, from the 1967 production of the Lerner & Leowe musical, Camelot. In the final scene, King Arthur, devasted at what appears to be the death of Camelot and his dreams with it, faces a battle he doesn't want to fight. Moments before dawn when the battle will surely begin, a young boy emerges from the fog who wants to fight at his side--he still believes in Camelot! Arthur, with his hope renewed, knights the lad, but tells him he must fight for Camelot in a different way; he tells him to go back to his home and tell people about Camelot, to keep the dream alive wherever he goes. As the boy runs to do the King's bidding, Arthur's friend, aging King Pellinore asks, "Who was that?" Arthur replies, "One of what we all are, Pelli--less than a drop in the great blue motion of the sunlit sea, but it seems some of the drops sparkle, Pelli! Some of them do sparkle!"

I too have a message, given to me not by King Arthur, but by the King of Kings, and His is not a dying dream but a living one. He has commissioned me to take it wherever I go--to bless the world with His love. Father, let me sparkle for You and Your Kingdom! Let me be more passionate about being a blessing than about getting one! Remove the word "encore" from my spiritual vocabulary and replace it with "This also is Thou." Help me to know You as the "Fount of every blessing" and consistently sing with songs of loudest praise,

"All my fountains are in You!"