Day Eighteen Droughts
Even after a wonderful service at church where I clearly felt the spirit move me to new heights in my singing, I found myself fighting another low point today. I woke to write at four this morning, the words about sweet memories flowing slowly onto the page. The scriptures were abundant to pick from, but as I wrote, no ….. as I left the church building last evening, no…..it was as I took my seat back in the pew Sunday night, a gloominess settled over my joy. And so the page was left unfinished ….
Sitting at my desk later today, the gloomy mood preventing me from accomplishing anything productive today, I opened my mid-morning devotional early to read this verse.
Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought.
Like a breath of fresh air coming through a door opened just after a spring rain, the spirit spoke to me through this verse. I was beginning to experience a drought. Satan was attempting to separate me from my joy by tricking me into a period of depression. If he had succeeded in this attempt, I would risk losing more than my joy. Satan loves it when he can attack us this way and we must recognize these attempts to take our joy and see them as very serious.
Very dangerous a drought- A long period of abnormally low rainfall, especially one that adversely affects growing or living conditions- it can damage your spirit if left unchecked too long. It can weaken your faith.
Since I can’t ever allow Satan to weaken my faith again, I started searching immediately for a scripture to give me strength to fight this gloomy mood. I found my answer in the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah gives us the cure in this wonderful verse.
Isaiah 58:11:
11And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.
Oh how I want to be guided continually, satisfied, ….ok so fat is not the word I would choose....but I do want to have enough extra nutrition that I don’t suffer when Satan attacks. I want to be so strong that I go into survival mode every time I sense that Satan is near. For you see, it is important to note that droughts are not caused by God, God allows Satan to throw these kinks in our path and then God uses them to test our faith and build it stronger, much stronger than it was before. A wonderful illustration of what I mean is found in 1Kings 17, where God uses the prophet Elijah to speak some pretty harsh words to his people.
They did not listen to him, so he struggled with just how to help them understand that God was pretty fed up with them. Imagine this prophet who was struggling with people who would not listen. Oh how he must have prayed each night for a new way to deliver this important message. God, knowing ahead of time they would never listen, loved him so very much that he gave him some time off. He would send a strong message to his people to shape up or else, and let Elijah rest by a river to wait out the terrible drought he was sending. He fed him and took care of his every need. He sent the Ravens to minister to him. What faith it must have took for Elijah to hold on to his sanity.
Even as the river dried up, God sent him to a widow…yeah I said widow….how ironic for me that he sent Elijah to a widow! This widow was very poor and had a son to care for. She wasn’t completely sure that feeding this prophet was a good thing either. She only had a small amount of flour and oil and was pretty sure her family was going to die. But then the miracles begin to happen. I love how God shows out, even when we give up!
Because she follows Elijah’s directions from God, her flour never runs out and her oil just keeps flowing. As if both of them have not been tested enough, God knows just what we can take, her son gets very sick and dies. She even blames his death on Elijah. But then God just keeps showing off! This powerful prophet DOES NOT GIVE UP! He continues to follow Gods direction and uses the power of God to bring him back to life. How amazing! And what a great model of how to not give up on God’s plan for us. Just when we think that our world has been rocked completely out of socket, God shows up and restores order in a most amazing way.
I think if you look back on the plot of your own disasters, you will find a similar theme. We suffer, God teaches us a hard lesson, I can see the thread of disaster after disaster in my own life teaching me some really hard lessons. My tragic divorce and the death of Mitchell, they have taught me how much I must depend on God for my needs. How much more precious the gift he gave me in Mitchell when I look at it that way!
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