I’ve been thinking about water a lot.
Where we live in Utah, we are in the midst of a summer drought. Advertisements are all around that we need to conserve water, we have limited days and times that we can water the grass and the fire risk is high.
At times, it’s easy to forget I live in a high desert. We aren’t surrounded by cactus and sand, temperatures in the 100s are rare {although this year we have hit the 90s a record number of times already}, and we have snow in the winter. It doesn’t feel like a desert except in these years of drought when the news is constantly how the reservoirs — filled with melted snow runoff — are getting lower and yards are getting brown.
But one of the amazing things about drought is the weeds are thriving. Even though the grass is getting brown in some spots, viney weeds are creeping up nice and green. It doesn’t seem fair.
I find nature to be such a good metaphor for much of the Christian life. Even some of the language we use {going through a spiritual desert or dryspell} makes us think of nature. So it shouldn’t really be a surprise that my mind jumped to spiritual application while trying to keep my plants alive.
The other day, I missed an evening watering of my flowers. Because our sprinklers aren’t turning on as often, I’ve had to fill a watering can and go to each pot and plant. I try to go around sunset so the plants can soak up all the water without the sun evaporating any. After missing that one watering, when I went out the next evening, the ground around my seed spouts was so dry and cracked, the water I poured ran right off. The hard ground didn’t let any of the water soak in and nourish the struggling plant. I had to fill my can a second time and slowly pour the water at the base of each plant before the ground finally accepted it and turned to mud.
I thought how incredible it was that forgetting to water just one day made all the difference in the ground. With constant sun and heat and no water or shade, the ground almost became unreceptive to the water the plants around it needed. And watering seemed fruitless. Maybe I should just give up this year. Let the flowers dry and wither and spend my evenings on more profitable than hauling water across the yard.
Now I know all object lessons break down at some point but let’s compare this to a spiritual dryspell we might experience. In my own life, I’ve found that it’s harder to live a consistent Christian life when I’m not reading my Bible. I get angry and frustrated more easily and things seem more overwhelming. And when I stop and think about what brought this change, it’s usually because I’ve missed my Bible reading or I’ve been consuming so many other things that fill my mind instead of God’s truth.
My heart becomes like the hard ground, unable to soak in the good things God has put in my life or dwell on his Word.
Spiritual droughts happen for many reasons: life transitions, trials, sometimes laziness or mixed priorities. But droughts don’t have to last forever. Unlike a physical lack of water, we can do something to help our situation. We can faithfully read and apply God’s Word, even when we don’t feel like it and it’s hard.
One of the best books I read during the pandemic was, “Everyday Faithfulness” by Glenna Marshall. In it, Marshall devotes each chapter to explaining how even in suffering, even in waiting, even in doubt, even in….you name it, we can practice faithfulness. But the thing about being faithful is that it doesn’t happen overnight. It is a slow, steady, diligent process. One of her quotes that I love is, “Many of us long to follow Jesus more closely, but we are more focused on our present circumstances than on a long view of faithfulness.” {p 19}
Faithfulness is that diligent watering even when days of heat seem to be withering the flowers. Faithfulness is pulling weeds that multiple in dry grass overnight. Faithfulness is opening our Bibles and reading a chapter when we would rather do something else.
Times of drought — physically and spiritually — are almost inevitable. But by being faithful TODAY in what we know we should be doing, we will be building a foundation of faithfulness for the hard times to come.
Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash