Like a River Glorious

I drove to downtown Estes the other day to meet a friend at Kind Coffee. The tourist have arrived for the season so I parked at the visitor center and started to walk toward Elkhorn Avenue. That's when I noticed all the city work trucks and skads of men in yellow swarming around the river.
The previous winter's unrelenting cold had prevented any snow melt until just recently, when we finally got some very warm temperatures.
Now the banks were barely holding the water back and the city workers scrambled to line the river with sand bags.
The workers wove yellow tape through the trees bordering the river, warning visitors to keep their distance from the churning water.
After my meeting, my friend and I walked along the Riverwalk, marvelling at the power of the water. Tourists gawked and took pictures. Parents held on to their toddlers. The roar of the river made conversation impossible.
I thought, how like water is God. At times, it is the soothing "quiet waters" of Psalm 23, or the life-giving water that feeds the tree in Jeremiah 17. Sometimes, it is the dark, swift and dangerous water of Isaiah 43 through which God promises to accompany us. It is the washing water that cleanses us with the Spirit in Ephesians 5:26, or the living water that God promises will flow out of us: John 7:38.
No one word can describe water.
Neither can one word describe God.
At times He is gentle, soothing, comforting, inspiring.
At others, just like the river in Estes, He is dangerous, majestic, glorious and awesome.
That river is nothing in comparison to the majesty of God. But it makes me think of God. . . and worship Him.

"Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail. . . ? Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain, and a path for the thunderstorm. . . ?" (Job 38:21,25)