The Dry Seasons

The pecan trees on the farm have seen a lot of years come and go.  Some are likely a hundred or more years old.  I first laid eyes on them fifty years ago and they were huge back then.  If the older ones which stand round the old farmhouse could tell stories, there would be some great ones to hear.  This year seems to be a year for a bumper crop of pecans.  The trees are loaded with a crop of pecans.  And in addition to the nuts, there is heavy green foliage on the trees which makes for a large crop of broken limbs on the ground to clean up.

 

After several years of dry weather and poor production, it is good to see the trees doing what they were put in the ground to do.  Whether the market is strong or weak, and it will likely be weak with so many pecans, it is simply good to see these trees living according to their created purpose.  Looking back over the years of my own life is to know that there have been those times when the purpose for which God put me here has suffered because of the dry seasons in my spiritual life.  The thing about the dry seasons of the soul is that they are not climate related, but determined by some degree of willfulness in our own spirit.  

Most of us will confess to recurring dry seasons in our spiritual journey.  Even as the earth needs the nourishing power of the waters from the heavens, so does our spiritual life need the nourishing power of the Spirit.  When the dry seasons come, it is likely we have put up some dam like obstacle which has hindered the Spirit's work in our life.   What was intended to flow naturally from the heart of God is hindered by our desire to do things our way instead of allowing His way to prevail in our spirit.  God does not send the dry seasons of the soul so much as we create the spiritual climate that produces them.