"Will this summer ever end?" I've asked that question more times than I care to admit over the last past months. In the natural this was a summer of extremely hot temps and no rain to speak of. On the mountain where I work we saw several weeks of temps in triple digits. It was no fun being outside and even the earth groaned under the pressure. Three of the six ponds dried up and there is enough grass in the bottom of them to cut as hay. Simply put it was miserable!!!! Spiritually my life mirrored what was happening in the natural! To put it frankly... It sucked!!!! I was miserable and I complained a lot. I struggled with emotions that had never ever confronted me and I wrestled with some that I hadn't seen for many years. I felt like the trees and grass on the mountain... that I was in a fight for my very life. Like the trees, all the extra stuff began to fall off. Every ministry effort I was involved in dried up and there was no joy in them any longer. I was frustrated with my relationships at home and even with God. I really just wanted to disappear and not ever come back. This of course wasn't the answer God had for me. I don't believe that's the answer He has for any of us when life seems to come unraveled.
I've learned a lot through this season of my life that I hope I never forget... I don't want to go around this mountain again!!! One lesson I learned was that of dropping the extras to go deep in order to find a life source in the midst of a drought. Let me explain. I watched the trees not only begin to drop their leaves to maintain life in their branches. I saw them pull back even further when they began to drop limbs and even some of them dropped whole tops. Its as if they were self-prunning or something to maintain life in their trunks... the core of their being. I saw the vines in the vineyard drop their grapes and leaves as well. All the sap, their life blood, pulled back to the rudiments. Nothing but the trunk and roots showed signs of life. The grass did the same thing. All the grass went dormant and turned brown. It wasn't pretty and there definitely wasn't any fruit, but wait, summer is the season of fruitfulness, right? What's up with that God? Desperation! That's what I began to realize. I was desperate for the life giving waters just like the earth was. Desperation is where I end and God begins. I like to be fruitful and enjoy the harvest. It makes me feel good about what I'm doing for God...Right? A deeper realization begins to sink in... what if my fruit is just that...My Fruit and not His? Ouch! God seems to be okay with allowing false fruit to wither and die so that the true fruit can be produced again. Isn't that what we see with the churches in the book of Revelation? Then another realization washes through my understanding... My fruit is the harvest of previous sowing in my life. Ouch again... God could You please relent a little? So now here I am with all the extra cut off and laying in piles around me. Let me be clear here. The things I was involved in weren't bad or even wrong... my heart was where the bad fruit began to be produced... My enemy had sown bad seeds in the night and they took root to produce fruits of dead religion and fleshly desire.
Now that all the bad seems to be cut away the new season can begin. I don't say that pridefully, just that God hasn't revealed anything else that needs to be cut away at this time. He's a great surgeon and will only cut away what we can recover from. Now I'm back to "Be Still and Know That I'm God!" As my soul and spirit grow still like the trees that pull back their sap to maintain life I can begin to feel the hope and joy returning! New fruit is already beginning to be produced in my heart. Promises are being shored up and vision restored! In my desperation I have found the deep meaning of the verse in Matthew... Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled!
I know many others who've been in this same season... I hear the Lord saying as He did to Joshua many, many years ago Be strong and of a good courage!
