This summer has been a season of rain. The ground has barely had time to dry out before being soaked again. The land is saturated and now, when the rains come, the water just puddles and pools wherever it lands. My yard, which my husband and I have allowed to naturalize, looks lovely and lush. It is impossible to walk in my little forest without being soaked from all the wet foliage. The slightest brush against a water-laden leaf results in a good soaking.
Wildlife abounds in our little area, and we are always pleased to see an ever-increasing variety of birds and small animals calling it home. All the rain has ensured that an abundant crop of seeds, berries, and nuts keeps the animals nourished and allows them to prepare for winter. The lifegiving water is so abundant that the frogs have moved from our ponds to the large puddles that never have the opportunity to dry up.
As I write this, I can see another storm roll in. You see, not only has it been a wet year, it has also been a year of storms. I don’t like the storms (they can be downright scary sometimes), but they bring the rain, and I appreciate the lifegiving water that they bring.
All of this is a contrast to the years when the summers are too dry. The seasons when we watch our ponds shrink a little more each day as the leaves shrivel on the trees. The years where there isn’t enough sustenance to go around for all the wildlife. The days when I walk outside to be hit with a wave of heat that threatens to take my breath away, and a stroll around the yard finds birds, beaks open and panting, as they wait for lifegiving moisture to arrive. Often a fast-moving, tempestuous thunderstorm finally brings relief.
We go through these seasons personally, too, don’t we? We’ve all been through a spiritual dry season. Can’t you sympathize with the birds, waiting, hoping that some lifegiving water will come before it is too late? Haven’t you felt as if your hope is shrinking as your faith shrivels? Like King David, you cry out, “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” (Psalm 13:1).
I know I have spent more than one season in this dry, parched, and seemingly forsaken place. Although the causes might be varied, we all sometimes end up in a place where our life seems like a dry riverbed, cracked and hardened by the neverending heat. There is comfort in knowing that, although we seem alone, we are not experiencing something unique.
Again, in the Psalms we find David crying out to God. Psalm 102:2-4 says, “Do not hide your face from me in the day of my distress. Incline your ear to me; answer me speedily in the day when I call! For my days pass away like smoke, and my bones burn like a furnace. My heart is struck down like grass and has withered.” The psychological place David is describing sounds awfully familiar to me. I’m pretty sure I’ve visited the same spot, or at least been in the vicinity! Withered, dry, and burnt out, like David I cry out to God for my rescue.
Dear sisters, we know that God hears our cries, and He brings relief after the dry periods, after the storm brews and sweeps through our carefully laid plans. Psalm 105 talks about how God met the needs of the Israelites in the desert. Verse 41 says, “He opened the rock, and water gushed out; it flowed through the desert like a river.”
Can you picture it? A life-giving river tumbling over the parched ground, bringing life where only death had been, bringing joy when all hope of happiness seemed to have disappeared! How majestic is our God! How can we not stand in awe before His deeds?
When I am lost in my own desert, I know that turning to God’s Living Word is like water for my parched soul. As I purposely call out to Him and turn to what He tells me in His word, new life begins to sprout. Those places that I thought could never be filled again are once again abounding in life, overflowing with growth that only God can bring.
Taking it Further: Can you recall a time when God’s Living Word has broken into a dry season of your life and allowed new growth to spring forth?
