Just as seasons change in nature, people too have seasons that they go through. However, when people go through changes they aren’t always short nor do they change in a specific order or length of time as nature does. There is much we can learn from plants when they go through their seasonal changes. There is a reason why the Bible compares people to trees and plants very often. Much like plants that can be cut down and grow back fuller, so too can people. Sometimes we can go through something very difficult and it almost feels as though it’s destroying us yet we can come back stronger after some time has past.
When you are in a season of drought it could be for different reasons. Sometimes your faith is being tested and you are going through something in order to create an awareness of where you are, where you have been and where you are going. Some seasons come because of bad decisions; the tumultuous nature of life can be a direct result of our mistakes. Sometimes the season of drought you’re in is a call to repentance. Perhaps you have lost yourself, the things your parents or grandparents taught you as a child have somehow slipped from the forefront of your mind and you have slowly let the world entice you and the end result has been losing yourself.
Sometimes you end up in this season not because of anything that you’ve done but because the time for you to go somewhere new is now. God doesn’t want us to remain stagnant in our life. He wants us to not only grow as a tree grows from a seed to a sapling to a mighty towering tree but he wants us to produce fruit by and through our life.
“The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” Galations 5:22,23
If you lack love, try to take the focus off yourself and look for someone you can help. A neighbor, coworker, a friend in need. Do something for someone else and you will realize that this is the greatest way to cultivate love around you and within yourself.
If you lack joy, cut out things from your life that are causing you pain. People who reject you, hurt you, ignore you or whatever it is that people might do to you God will never hurt you or forget about you.
If you lack peace, redirect your mind to your creator the one who made heaven and earth and all that is in them but still decided at the end of it all that the world still needed YOU.
If you lack patience, learn to pause before reacting. Pause before speaking. Pause before making a decision. Develop the habit of praying before responding. Over time the Holy spirit will give you the ability to be patient in many situations that you used to panic over or become quickly and easily agitated by.
If you lack kindness, start looking within at what has hurt you. Hurt people tend to hurt others. Look at your life and ask who or what has hurt you and then ask God to take all of that hurt from you and make you new. Ask him to make you whole and He who is always faithful will bind your wounds and bring healing where once there was pain and scars.
If you lack goodness, ask yourself when you die how do you want to be remembered? Do you want to be someone that others felt blessed by? Do you want people to remember you as someone who cared about others? Do you want to do what’s right but you keep doing the thing you don’t want to do? You’re in good company, God can change any heart. He says he will take your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. Ezekiel 11:19
If you lack faithfulness, start by not giving someone a direct answer when you are unsure if you can come through for them or give them a solid no instead of saying yes and then failing to do it. Make it a habit to keep your word in the smallest things so that when something more serious comes up your friends and family know that you will come through. Most of all, look to the one who is always faithful and spend more time praying and reading your bible to reflect on the faithfulness of Jesus.
If you lack gentleness, start by being more gentle with yourself. When you get in the shower don’t scrub yourself like you’re washing dirt off the sidewalk instead gently cleanse yourself, wash your face gently, eat slowly and enjoy your food without distractions, buy a plant and take care of it so you learn the result of gentleness and care for something outside of yourself. Ask God to give you the Holy Spirit and by His power these things will be added unto you.
If you lack self-control, fast. Fasting is one of the greatest ways to become more aware of the things that you do, the decisions you make sometimes unconsciously. When you fast and pray you will become more aware of yourself, your senses strengthen and you appreciate food more when it’s finally time to break your fast. Practice saying no at least once a day to something you would normally eat or drink that isn’t healthy! If this is too much at first then practice once a week not indulging in something you usually consume a lot of whether it’s food, drink, or media.
Whatever you do, however you’re feeling, God will not let you down. Turn your eyes upon Jesus, store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, die to self daily, when someone asks you to go with them one mile go with them for two instead. All of these biblical principles that Jesus taught his disciples apply to us today as we too are His creation, His family. Despair and suffering will only last for a short time until He returns let us remain faithful unto Him.
Though your life may feel empty, you might feel like nothing is happening, your season of “drought” will not be forever. God will bring the rains and this too shall pass. The secret to making it to the end is to daily be filled with the Holy spirit and to not forget to go to the one who loves you more than anyone in this world ever could.
Family may abandon you, friends may betray you, someone you love might be unfaithful or abuse you, but in the end when this world ends, what will matter is your relationship with God and there is nothing that matters more. God gave Moses and the Hebrews water flowing from a rock in the middle of a desert! He fed them manna from heaven when there was no food. He protected them daily from things they did not even know could kill them. What He did for them He still does for us, for those who follow Him and even those who are still lost but God sees who they could be, He knows the future and He sees YOU, there is no one who is “too far gone” or not worth saving. Sometimes we wander in the desert because of our own doubts.
The Bible says choose today whom you will serve because life has a way of hardening our hearts. Sometimes if we don’t choose Him when we are young it will be much harder to choose Him when we have been bruised and beaten by the world but no matter where you are in your faith it is never too late. As long as we are alive there is still time but my plea to you my dear friend is not to wait for a sign, not to wait for something to change right when you want it to but to step out on a limb and give Jesus a chance because I promise you if you do He will not ever let you down.
John 3:16
