This is a picture of the source of the White Nile.  It flows here, out of Lake Victoria at Jinja, Uganda down into Lake Albert, then down into Sudan to Khartoum where it meets the Blue Nile from Ethiopia and then flows down to Egypt, eventually into the Mediterranean Sea.
As I sit here with in a stone throw of that river, I started to think about its course.  The Nile is not unlike a lot of rivers in that it does almost all of its major falling near its source.  However, I believe the Nile is quite extreme in that sense.  Jinja is not much more than 3700 feet above sea level, and yet I sit well over 3000 miles upriver from the Mediterranean.  Even more in the extreme, it does the majority of its fall here in Uganda.  Once a few hundred miles into Sudan, the river is less than 1500 feet above sea level and still has over 2000 miles to go!  There is no way an engineer could design, nor man construct, a water management project with that little fall.
What does all that mean?  Why does it matter?  To me, as I contemplate that, it brought to mind the process God takes us through in different times in our lives.
In the beginning of God calling us to something, we are just sitting there.  Much like the waters of Lake Victoria, we can become diseased, mosquito, hippo, and croc infested waters waiting for something to happen.  Then we hear the call of God.  It comes like the rush of the river as it flees the lake.  In thunderous falls we are catapulted into the work God has called us.  We move with rapid speed and through many tumultuous times.  We have a strong passion and feel gravity pulling us toward the goal.  There are times of quite, like Lake Kyoga, or Lake Albert, but these are short respites from the rush as we follow the passion instilled in us.
Then things begin to slow.  The passion is not as strong, and the geography changes.  We can run into a time like the “Sudd.”  The Sudd is a huge swamp in Sudan.  It is a huge flat area where the White Nile has no course.  There is no channel, no route the river follows.  When explorers were trying to establish the source of the Nile just about 100 years ago, none of them could get through the Sudd.  No one could traverse the Sudd to prove it was the Nile from above or below.  Even today, it is a very dangerous place (the Sudanese civil war not withstanding).  This is always a tough time when God calls.  You knew before He had called you to something, and He had provide the passion to thrust you forward.  But now that call seems so distant.  You are not going anywhere and there is nothing but mud and tall grass on every side.
This is a trying time, but necessary.  Often times, this is the place where we quit.  We decide that we must have misunderstood God’s call.  Maybe He meant something else.  Surely this is the closed door we were praying about.  However, this is a time of great learning.  When we slow down and are able to see what God is doing in the quit of our hearts.  We pick up a lot of sediment when we rush down with passion, and God needs to settle that out of us, to prepare us to move on.
If we make it through the Sudd time, God might bring along someone to help.  He does this at different times, but sometimes it is a huge moment, like when the Blue Nile joins at Khartoum.  God knows that it will be only as we work together that we will be able to accomplish His goal.  So bolstered by that help, we push on, into the desert.
The Nile passes right through one of the largest deserts on the earth.  A seemingly never ending stip of dryness that crosses the whole of northern Africa.  The desert time is also trying.  No one else is going to come and help.  There seems to be no end in sight, and the fall in the river, the passion, is so little, it is nearly immeasurable.  From Khartoum to the sea is over 2000 miles with 1000 feet of fall.  The path is not even straight, at times it wanders away from its goal.  This time requires patience and consistent dedication to His will.  God is testing you.  Do you have what it takes to cross the desert sands?  Will you stick it out, or dry up and quit?
Eventually, if we perservere, we reach the goal.  The thing God wanted in us is accomplished and we see the glory in it as the fertile delta spreads out into the sea.  God’s work, manifest in us, has brought about great change.  Change, not only in us, but in the world around us that we touch and influence.  He can provide waters in the desert through us, if we are willing, committed to His purpose.  And having accomplished the goal, He gives a time of closeness to Him before we are plunged back to earth to begin another long journey He has set before us.