Many years ago, Kelly Kenagy gave me an insight into what he called the underground river.  

It has been helpful in my life for many years.  

Here are his thoughts:

“Jesus often tells his followers that if they ask in his name, they will receive what they desire.  That needs a little explanation.  In the Greek the word ask means to crave with a strong desire and the word name means nature or character.  Thus, this kind of a prayer is a strong desire within those who are seeking to see God do things that are consistent with His character.  It does not mean tacking, “in the name of Jesus”, on the end of our prayer so that we get whatever we ask.  Instead, the kind of asking Jesus encourages is more like an underground river of desire that is shaped by the presence of Jesus’ love deeply imbedded in a transforming way in our lives.  Occasionally the river of desire bubbles up in a refreshing spring of words that indicate we are walking with Jesus in depth.  When our lives and our prayer words don’t flow from this river then we are only a babbling brook of religious words.”  Kelly Kenagy

Kelly’s ideas about the kind of prayer Jesus encourages is what works deep within us and it is something we carry always, not just when we are saying words.  So, for many years I have carried prayers for friends where I live and in Africa, Canada, and many parts of the United States.  Often they bubble up in thoughts and words in ways that may me feel I am partnering with Jesus in the things he cares about in our troubled world.

Recently, a friend suggested something that is giving me another helpful idea about my journey.  He said he has been thinking about having a reservoir of God’s love so that out of that fullness in our lives there will be an abundance of love so we can both respond to God and also have abundant love that flows to others.  How do we create a reservoir of the love of God to dwell in us?

Some thoughts that have been helpful to me in my journey:

I have had to learn to receive God’s love as a free gift.  I spent too many years trying to perform well so I could earn God’s love.  The world around us tells us that nothing is free and if we want love and affirmation, we better perform well enough to deserve it.  And as I look back to being motivated by that reasoning, I realize that when I was seeking to perform to get love and affirmation whatever I received was never enough.  There was not only no reservoir, but there was only a small trickle flowing in my life.  David Benner states well what I want to experience on my journey:

“How desperately we want to contribute to the deal—our faith, our efforts, our love, our beliefs.  But the truth is that Perfect Love meets us where we are and asks only that we open our hearts and receive the love for which we long” Surrender to Love by David Brenner

And Benner gives me another thought about building a deep reservoir.  When I come to God wanting to talk only about my victories and all that is going well, even in the guise of gratitude, the reservoir is only a thin surface with no depth and thus do depth for the reservoir of God’s love.  It is in opening up to God’s love, bringing to him all the ways I fail that he can dig the debris out of my life.  And he “removes it as far as the east is from the west”.   This is what will create a deep reservoir.  Benner puts this idea in these words:

“Only Jesus dares to make God’s love unconditional.  The God he shows us loves sinners, redeems failures, delights in second chances and fresh starts, and never tires of pursuing lost sheep, waiting for prodigal children, or rescuing those damaged by life and left on the sides of its paths.”

So, when I become vulnerable with God about my sinfulness and my many failures to live as he and I desire, I am with God digging a deep reservoir that can be filled to overflowing with God’s loving acceptance of who I am.  Then when this love flows through the underground river it brings healing life to others. 

There is a problem that is part of Christianity around the world.  It is that too often the reservoir with no outflow quickly becomes a stagnant pool that squelches the life of Jesus rather than bring life to others through the flow of God’s love.

What makes a stagnant pool? 

My struggle with this came from wanting to get my doctrine right so that I believed all the right things and would be affirmed by others because of my doctrinal veracity.  Correct doctrine is helpful, (Though there are thousands of different doctrines that we Christians think are the correct ones.) but they are not life transforming.  Only basking in God’s love and letting it flow through me keeps the pool from getting stagnant.

Our world is full of people who, like me, believed things about Jesus but who have not let God’s love into them through a transformational encounter with Jesus.  A recent survey noted that 65% of the people in the United States identify as “Christian” but that less than 10% are living a lifestyle that is any different from those who have no religious faith.   The stagnant pool is not transformational.

I have been thinking that there is more than one kind of reservoir in our experience with Jesus.  In the natural realm there are reservoirs formed by a dam on the Columbia River.  There is another kind that is seen in the Cascades.  It is snow melting on Mount Jefferson, flowing down the mountain, going underground and bubbling up in the Metolius Spring and flowing on downhill bringing life to fish, animals, plants and people.  And on many farms in Oregon the farmers have dug a large hole in a field and the reservoir is filled from rain and is a source for their farm.  Most likely God helps us build our reservoir in different ways because the love we share with him is unique.

How can we help each other build reservoirs of God’s love in our lives? 

One thing that has become helpful is to keep clear about what is the objective and what is the result.  The objective in this is to connect with God in deep love.   The result is we build a reservoir of that love in our lives.  Years ago, when Kelly Kenagy was a lay preacher, he prepared sermons for each Sunday.  It wasn’t working all that well.  He came up with a metaphor that fits all of us who have opportunities to teach others.  He said,

It was like I would go into the kitchen (my study) and prepare a meal for the people.  I would take it to them, serve them, and watch them eat.  Then I would go back to the kitchen and prepare another meal and watch them eat, and on and on.  And I was starving!  I had to learn to read, study, pray and meditate on what would feed my hungry soul.  Then some of those ideas that were changing my life could be shared with others as they flowed out of my life.   He began to experience what was the objective (fill your reservoir) and what was the result (let truth and love flow).

No doubt those reading this are already walking with others in ways that fill their reservoirs. 

Here are some quotes that affirm our empowering journeys with others:

“What we need is not intellectual theorizing or even preaching, but a demonstration.  There is only one way of turning people’s loyalty to Christ, and that is by loving others with the great love of God.  A society of loving souls, set free from the self-seeking struggle for personal prestige and from all unreality, would be something unutterably precious.  A wise person would travel any distance to join it.”  Alternative to Futility by Elton Trueblood

“As we experience God at work in people’s lives and become conduits for his love and power, the gospel of Jesus penetrates our hearts and the places where we are not aligned with Him.  As the good news of the gospel flows into the world, it also flows through us, and we are changed from the inside out.” Participating in God’s Mission by Paula Fuller

“A fellowship lives and exists by the intercession of its members for one another, or it collapses.  Intercessory prayer is the purifying bath into which the individual and the fellowship must enter every day.  Intercession is a daily service we owe to God and to our brother.” Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

As you can tell by this writing, this is a new insight for me, and I am still pondering how best to keep a reservoir of God’s love in my life.  I am hoping to also learn how I might encourage others to experience the reservoir of God’s love in theirs. 

Any ideas you have will be helpful.

Kent Hotaling, January 2026