Water From Heaven

I live in the high desert. Recently we’ve had a lot of rain—flooding, streets that looked like rivers, homes destroyed.

They say it’s a 250 year cycle. It’s bizarre. It’s also surprising.

When I look around now, I see green. It startles me and I always take a second look just to see if I really saw what I saw. The hills near my home has been brown and barren since we moved here. Shrubs and cactus grow there but the ground in a hard crusty layer of sun baked sand. Not anymore. Green plants, grasses, and flowers now cover the ground. It looks like someone Big with a huge can of paint has sprayed the soil with green paint, except it’s not fake looking like those lawns in California that were painted during the drought.

This is real. Living. Things are growing. It’s made me realize that all a desert lacks for beauty is water. That may be a no brainier for most of you, but for me it is amazing. Underneath that baked earth, seeds just waited for water. Some maybe waited 250 years (if seeds stay viable that long). When enough moisture finally touched them, they responded by growing.

The Bible talks of the Lord bringing streams to the desert. Here’s one verse from Isaiah 35:6 “Springs will gush forth in the wilderness, and streams will water the desert.”

Before, I thought verses like these were an allegory for God quenching the thirst of people by giving them water in a place that was dry. Now I’m wondering if it isn’t a wonderful promise of change and growth! Things do not have to stay hard, all we need is a touch of God’s grace flowing down from heaven to water our souls and then we can begin to grow!

Another word from growing is changing! Our lives don’t look the same, they gain color, when He has touched us with healing rain. What type of little dormant seeds do I harbor deep in my soul? What is hidden there, just needing, longing for, asking for, God to pour out His streams. We can not will our dreams or potential to grow, no, like seeds, they are responders. What I need is an outpouring from the Life Giver, the One who sends rain, and provides streams in the desert.