Category: Faithfulness

Peanut-Sized Prayer

1/21/2019

Peanut-sized Prayer - George Washington Carver

   Lately I’ve been reading about prayer. What has been wonderful is that the direction of the author I’ve read is not primarily a theological treatise on prayer. It has been more of the practical work of walking with and seeking God. The reading I did today touched on the life of George Washington Carver. Carver did not have an easy life. He was born toward the end of the Civil War to a family of slaves on the Moses Carver farm. He, his sister, and mother were kidnapped by the Kentucky night raiders. George was rescued and returned to the Carvers who raised him and his brother James. George lived in a deeply segregated south where it was very difficult for a black child to receive an education. Yet through perseverance He not only graduated from high school, but also graduated from what is now known as Iowa State University. He studied botany there as their first black student, and eventually became their first black faculty member. His thirst for learning eventually led him to receive a Master’s degree in botany where he became well-known for his work in plant pathology and mycology. After receiving his Master’s degree he joined Booker T. Washington at what would become Tuskegee University in Alabama.

   There was another side to Carver. He was a very godly man who know the Lord. At age 10 he had the following conversation with his foster father when he asked him about grapes.

“Why are grapes purple?” George asked.
“Nobody knows.” his foster father replied.
“Does God know?” George asked.
“Of course he does.”
“Then I’ll ask him,” George responded, and left the room.
That was the simple faith of George Washington Carver. His foster father was amazed. He said, "George shouldn’t talk that way. He sounded as if he were going to meet God out there – around the house.”

   Fortunately for him - and for us - George didn’t think that way. He developed a lifestyle of prayer that stayed with him throughout his entire life. Those who knew him said he would rise at 4 or 5 a.m and pray to start his day. And George kept on praying like he could go around the house and meet God.

   Alabama and the surrounding southern states were experiencing hard times because they were farming the ground too hard. Dr. Carver taught farmers how to rotate crops. He introduced planting peanuts as an alternative crop to help with this problem. The only difficulty was that there was not a market for all the peanuts that were grown. Dr. Carver began praying about this. One of his favorite Bible verses was from the book of Job.

But ask the animal, and they will teach you,
Or the birds of the sky and they will tell you;
Or speak to the earth, and it will teach you,
Or let the fish in the sea inform you.

He was certain that if he prayed and sought God, that God would give him wisdom to develop ways to use the peanut. In his own wonderfully humble words Dr. Carver related his conversation with God.

I asked God, “Why did you make the universe, Lord?
“Ask for something more in proportion to that little mind of yours,” God replied.
“Why did you make the earth, Lord?” I asked.
“Your little mind still wants to know far too much. ask for something more in proportion to that little mind of yours,” replied God.
“Why did you make man, Lord?” I asked.
“Far too much. Far too much. Ask again.” replied God.
“Explain to me why you made plants, Lord?” I asked.
“Your little mind still wants to know far too much,” the Lord replied.
“The peanut?” I asked meekly.
“Yes! For your modest proportions, I will grant you the master of the peanut. Take it inside your laboratory and separate it into water, fats, oils, gums, resins, sugars, starches, and amino acids. Then recombine these under my three laws of compatibility, temperature, and pressure. Then you will know why I made the peanut.” God said.

   God was true to His promise, and Dr. Carver was true to his work. He eventually found 300 uses for the peanut. The “National Peanut Board” reported that Dr. Carver’s labors revealed that food products from peanuts involved such things as peanut lemon punch, chili sauce, caramel, peanut sausage, mayonnaise and coffee. Then he experimented and learned that cosmetics could be derived from peanuts. The cosmetics included face powder, shampoo, shaving cream and hand lotion. Not satisfied there he also learned that insecticides, glue, charcoal, rubber, nitroglycerine, plastics and axle grease were a few of the many valuable products derived from peanuts. Peanuts, once a non-cash crop, by 1938 became a $200 million industry and one of the chief products of Alabama.

   One of my favorite stories about Dr. Carver is when he was allowed to testify before the House Ways and Means Committee on behalf of the United Peanut Association of America. He was informed by chairman Joseph Fordney that he would receive 10 minutes to testify. Dr. Carver enthralled the committee for an hour and 45 minutes about all that God had taught him about the lowly peanut. He spoke of shaving cream and soap, of cosmetics and wood stains, of glue and linoleum. He even shared with the committee about Worcestershire sauce! When he finished, chairman Fordney told Dr. Carver he could come back whenever he wanted and have as much time as he wanted.

   All this from one humble man who turned to God for help about how he could use the little ole peanut. This godly man, who turned to the Lord early each morning, was willing to listen to God as He spoke through the earth and the plants to teach him. And what a glorious set of lessons God gave him. Dr. Carver didn’t seek patents for all of his ideas. He simply said if God gave them to him, he wanted to give them freely to others. Oh, and by the way, he also learned from the glamorous sweet potato as well, sharing over 100 different uses for it as well.

   Dr. Carver faced a huge, God-sized problem. He had a multitude of peanuts - but no real profitable use for them. Dr. Carver knew from a lifetime of walking with and praying to God - that God had a wonderful answer if he would just seek God.

“Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and mighty things which you do not know.” Jeremiah 33:3, NASB

   Dr. Carver called. God answered and told him. Dr. Carver then used every last ounce of his learning and ability to follow God. Amazing things happened. Kind of astounding what the peanut-sized prayers of a godly man produced? So - what is it that you need to take to God and humbly ask for His help with today?

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What to do With a Lousy Quiet Time

1/31/2018

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What do you do when you’ve had your quiet time, prayed, and you come away with a sense that you’ve basically gotten nothing from the Lord for the day? This is a question I wanted to tackle because it is my guess that just about every Christian has mornings like this.

First of all, let’s address this from the sin point of view. If we are in known sin from which we have yet to repent - this will be the norm. If we think we’re going to have a wonderful time alone with God when we are in conscious known sin, we are kidding ourselves. The Word of God is very clear on this matter. “If I regard wickedness in my heart, the Lord will not hear.” (Psalm 66:18) Not only will He not hear - but usually when He speaks - it will only be to deal with the area of rebellion until repentance is embraced. Something I feel the necessity of saying is that He does this because He loves us. Scripture says God disciplines those He loves. But when this is ruled out we are still left wondering why it seemed like God did not do anything at all in our time alone with Him.

Second, let’s address this from the emotions point of view. We all want emotions - at least when we think that they are going to be good. But life is not a series of incredible emotions that are guaranteed every day. The emotion with which I loved my wife on my wedding day and subsequent honeymoon was a very high point in our marriage. The emotion we had at the birth of each of our six children was a high point in life. The emotions I had when I went up to preach my very first sermon to Calvary Chapel was a high point. But there have been many days as a husband, father, and pastor that were not equally as high. In fact, to wonder why every day isn’t that high, emotionally speaking, is ridiculous. I still love my wife - love my children - and love the congregation I pastor when I have average emotional days - and even when I have bad and horrible days emotionally. That is called living. Too often we paint the Christian life as one high after another - or like some kind of trip to an amusement park with thrill ride after thrill ride. That is a disservice to others on this path. A normal person has a normal range of emotions - up, down, and often - somewhat blah at times. To have a continuous high cheapens who we are to be in Christ. Jesus knew highs and lows and everything in between. To have a somewhat blah-zay time alone with God is not horrifically abnormal. This takes me to the third thing we need to consider.

Third there is the matter of faithfulness. Sherie and I do not have daily earth-shattering conversations. Most days we talk - and it is fairly normal, run of the mill, how was your day honey - kind of conversations. Because there is not a rush of emotion every time we speak does not make me doubt either her love for me or my love for her. We are faithful in really emotional times - and in times when the emotions don’t run as high. One of the things we need to remember is that God wants us to be faithful to Him. Therefore, when we have a really average time alone with God, or worse, a series of those average times - do we stop making time to be alone with God? The only way to build faithfulness in a life - is for there to be times when little more than faithfulness is why we keep going. We have things we value - regardless of whether they come with daily warm fuzzies or not. I value God - and value the relationship He has given to me through Jesus Christ. Whether I leave my time alone with Him high as a kite - or feeling very “non-feeling” will have no effect on whether I will continue to seek Him in the future. I seek Him BECAUSE I love Him - and I love Him because He first loved me. He values faithfulness - therefore I, too, will value it - with Him - with my wife - with my children - and with God’s saints. Truly - valuing faithfulness helps often with reaching out to the lost - because very often I get little back in response at first when sharing the gospel. But God calls me to love them and to share His Word with them - which requires (shocker alert) faithfulness.

The last (but certainly not exhaustive) matter is that of the silences of God. There are times when all seems to go silent in our spiritual lives. I’ve read many biographies of godly men and women who all testify to these times. Some call them the dark night of the soul while others refer to them as the silences of God. Whatever they are called, they are disturbing when they come. David spoke of one of these when he said these words:

How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart all the day? How long will my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and answer me, O LORD my God; Enlighten my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death, and my enemy will say, "I have overcome him," and my adversaries will rejoice when I am shaken. Psalm 13:1-4

The silence of God disturbed David - it spiritually freaked him out. He wondered where God was. He had a longing to see God’s face. He desired God’s counsel - and the way that God would enlighten his eyes like He previously had in days gone by. He looked at how his being shaken in his confidence in God would cause those who hate God to rejoice. Now, I have to confess that I purposely left out verses 5-6 of this Psalm. David was shaken somewhat by what he thought was God’s absence - or at least disinterest in fellowship with him. In a way I believe that this was by design. The design behind it was for David to see how futile life was without God. The design was for David to recognize that there was no other God for him but Jehovah. That threw him even more dependent and needy upon God. Such words are not written because a person is disinterested in God or had an apathy about his or her spiritual life. These are the words of the true believer who is “desperate for God!” Peter spoke such words in John 6 when he said, “Where else can we go? You alone have the words of life!” Now I’ll share the rest of Psalm 13.

But I have trusted in Your lovingkindness; My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation. I will sing to the LORD, Because He has dealt bountifully with me. Psalm 13:5-6

David goes from despair to trust - i.e. faith! One can almost hear him lifting these words to the heavens. “I’ve trusted your covenant-love.” Even as he lifts them there - he speaks them also to himself deep within his heart. This first phrase speaks of God’s covenant with Israel - and later His covenant with David. God made promises - and He WILL keep them. David turns from emotion to the Word. He turns from feelings to faith. I have trusted in Your promises. But next David says, “My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation” He turns from God’s promises to God’s prior works. He remembers the salvation of God - how God worked in him and he again shouts to the heavens, “I’ve trusted what You promised - and I will choose to rejoice in what You’ve done.” It is wise in our blah moments to remember the mercies and grace of God given to us in salvation. As we remember His salvation - we need to speak it to our heart - and speak it with our heart as well. Then David finishes with a song. “I will sing to Jehovah, because He has dealt bountifully with me.” Please note that exclamation points are not used here. I’m glad they were not - because I believe David is not speaking from excess emotion within himself. He is speaking truth TO himself. Remember what God has both promised and done requires singing. But what if we don’t feel like singing? Sing anyway, because deep down that is probably what David was doing. He sang of how Jehovah had dealt “bountifully” with him. The word for “bountifully” is the Hebrew word “gamal” which means to recompense or to bring to a good completion. But it can also mean, “to wean.” It was this meaning that grabbed me when thinking of my dry, blah moments in my time alone with God. There are times when what God is doing is weaning us from the constant call for an emotional experience. The child who is weaning may feel that he or she is getting a raw deal. There was plenty of food and a nearness - even an intimacy with mom involved. Where has that gone? But the mother is not removing love from the child - she is preparing the child for a thousand different foods to come. We need to grasp that at times our loving Father in heaven is weaning us from the glut of “feelings” so that we can be ready for mature food. We are being moved from milk to meat.

Also - when these times come - God is allowing us to do what is truly in our hearts. That can be a painful moment - if all you have in your heart is “religious obligatory practices” and not a deep love of God. In those moments many turn away from God. If this is how it is going to be - I’ll just go somewhere else! That is a statement made by someone who has yet to be ruined by God. They have been ruined by God so that nothing else satisfies except God. His silences - or even our lousy quiet times can remind us of this. I am not here to fulfill a checklist of religious obligatory practices! I am here to meet God! Since nothing but God Himself will satisfy that longing - I MUST HAVE HIM!

So - you’ve finished your time alone with God. You “feel” as if nothing has happened. You wonder why? Maybe its unconfessed sin - but that is not God’s only reason from allowing such a thing in your life. He loves you and wants you weaned from “emotionally-dependent Christianity” where life is one awesome experience to the next. He also loves you and wants to build faithfulness into your life. And He may love you enough to be weaning you from such things so that you can move on from milk so that you may begin partaking of the meat of the Word. Whatever it is - let Him drive you, not away from Himself, with such difficulties. Let them drive you further into His arms - further into His promises in His Word - and further into a relationship of trust and faith in His Son.

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Doing the Same Thing Over and Over? (A Call to Faithfulness from Ruth)

6/12/2015

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May God bless you this week and help you to see when His will is simply to work hard at what you do and trust Him to bless you, lead you, and bring favor into your life.

Recently I went through the book of Ruth in my quiet time. As I was reading about Ruth I began to realize that God had some very important truth for me to learn from her example. Ruth was a Moabitess, a foreigner who was probably not received all that well when she first came into Israel. But regardless of what reception she received, she had determined that she was not going to leave Naomi. She had adopted her mother-in-law as well as the God that she served. She also knew that with Naomi’s husband dead and her husband dead as well, no one was working to put food on their table. So she did what anyone in that time would do – she went into the fields surrounding where they lived in Bethlehem and began to glean what was left after the harvesters had worked in the barley and wheat fields. This was hard work. Yet Ruth gave herself to doing it throughout the entire harvest of those two crops. This amounted to at least a month and possibly six to 8 weeks worth of backbreaking work for very little benefit. At least during those weeks they would have enough food usually for that day from what she brought home each evening at sunset. This was the will of God for Ruth and Naomi now that they had returned to Israel. The will of God for them was not glamorous – nor was it all that fun. It also was something they did to stay alive on a daily basis. It would have been odd for them to be able to save up much if anything from doing God’s will. But for a period of up to 8 weeks this is what they did.

Too often we wrongly get the idea that doing the will of God will lead to a very exciting, glamorous life for us. I am not saying that it won’t lead to times when things are exciting and fun, but neither will I submit to you that all of God’s will has to be fun for it to be . . . well, to be His will. Ruth is not the only one for whom the will of God means daily doing hard work faithfully. Ruth is not the only one for whom God’s will may mean working hard for enough to survive. For the majority of us living in the daily will of God will mean having a job we work every day – and doing it faithfully – every day. If this is the case for you, do not be disappointed – and do not think you must be out of God’s will if it doesn’t breed constant excitement and thrills.

The will of God for Ruth meant faithfully serving her mother-in-law. It meant waking up at the crack of dawn and heading to the fields to spend another very long day working very hard. It meant laboring so that she and Naomi would have something to eat that day. It meant trusting her new God to provide for them. It meant doing that day after day for the period of the harvest – and then not really knowing how they were going to eat within weeks of the harvest being over. Faced with these realities, Ruth worked hard. She didn’t complain about her circumstances – she worked within them and learned first hand how to trust the God of Israel for His provision for her fledgling family.

God blessed Ruth because of this faithfulness and hard work. The first day she worked, He providentially had her come to the fields of Boaz, a close relative to Naomi. Boaz spoke kindly to her and even served her food equal to those of his laborers. Ruth didn’t know that God’s mercies continued as Boaz instructed his laborers to pull out grain and stalks to leave for her to find. He also requested her to remain in his fields under his protection so that no one would take advantage of her in her precarious position of being a widowed foreigner. Then, when the time came for the harvest to be over, God blessed her by having Boaz respond to her request to be a part of his household according to Jewish custom, asking him to be her kinsman redeemer. This may have been custom for widowed Jewish women – but the probability of her being afforded that kindness as a Moabite was not high. Yet before the book of Ruth is over, that is exactly what her God did for her. God honored this lady for her willingness to simply do what is right – do it every day – do it without complaint – do it with gratefulness – and do it well.

God calls us to Himself and to a life lived to do His will. I will guarantee you that this will involve hard work. Honestly, it will also involve doing some of the same difficult, hard things day after day – without immediate gratification or some kind of instant reward. Many of His best rewards are reserved for things that take time. Fruit is not an instant thing – it takes an entire season to grow it. A tree full of fruit takes years from seed to grow, flourish, fight off disease, survive dry seasons, stand firm during storms and high winds, and eventually be green and full of nourishing fruit. This picture in nature matches that of Ruth’s life – and it is one we should note as we live a life for God’s glory.

Brethren, don’t be discouraged at your hard work and your daily life of “not-so-exciting” obedience and faithfulness. God IS at work in you and through you. Continue to give yourself to a life of faithfulness. Continue to submit to the daily rule and reign of God over your heart and your choices. Give yourself to your family, to your work, to your brothers and sisters in Christ, and to the lost. Be faithful to the daily little things and the occasional big things too. Know that such a life honors and glorifies God – and – will be rewarded in the end. Who knows – as you draw close to God through it all you also may be blessed with a disposition that enjoys the every day living of life for His purposes, His plans, and His will being worked out for His glory.

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Divorce or "Conscious Uncoupling"?

3/27/2014

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Divorce or Conscious Uncoupling?

Recently a new way of looking at marriage and how it ends has come boldly upon the scene. This old way of seeing marriages end was called divorce. It was and is a messy exercise as two people who pledged fidelity and a life-long commitment to each other break a covenant made before God and witnesses who came to support their union. Divorce is painful and involves both a sense of loss and a sense of failure. Promises were made – a covenant was made – and now it is being broken. Things seem wrong, because something has gone wrong. Some divorces are due to infidelity and adultery. Some divorces are due to abandonment. Some are due to two people who site irreconcilable differences. Some are simply due to one or both parties just not wanting to be married any longer – and wanting their freedom back to live and do as they want.

But, as I said at the beginning of this article, a new wind of doctrine is blowing over the wreckage of couples across the world. This new wind offers us arguments on why this whole, “till death do us part” thing was never a good idea in the first place – especially for those of us who have evolved toward longer lives than our Paleolithic ancestors. This new wind of doctrine is called, “conscious uncoupling.”

Conscious uncoupling is a term developed by Dr. Habib Sadeghi and Dr. Sherry Sami. These two postulate that the high divorce rate may be a mile marker in our evolutionary history. The problem may not be us – it may not be selfishness and self-centered thinking and actions. We may be just not responding properly to the evolutionary cycle we are in at this present time. They point us back to the evolutionary theory of the upper Paleolithic period, which supposedly takes us back to roughly 50,000 to 10,000 B.C. Life expectancy was under 50 for both men and women. Today life expectancey is 76 for men and 81 for women. What, you may wonder, does this have to do with the high levels of divorce (0ver 50% of all marriages end in divorce today) in our current day? Everything – according to the good doctors.

You see, evolution has advanced greatly since the days of our Paleolithic grandparents. Marriage for a lifetime to them meant, at the most, 20 years. But due to our evolutionary advances in longevity – we are expecting marriages to last anywhere from 25 to 60 years. Sadeghi and Sami want us to see that we’ve not evolved in our view of marriage. Our longevity has evolved way past our marriage stability quotient (have no idea what that means – but it sounded really good didn’t it). That is where Conscious Uncoupling comes in to rescue us from our lack of evolutionary progress in views of marriage and relationships.

We need to see that our evolutionary progress calls for a way to be in at least two to three strong relationships in a lifetime. The idea of “till death do us part” must evolve or perish as we move toward the eventual perfection that we seek (Even though there was no conscious force or individual that started evolution – we were just an amoeba that wanted more out of life – but honestly never knew why it did or any way to determine, beyond natural selection, why it even thought there was any morality involved. Actually, in light of this whole marriage mess – it might have been higher evolutionary thought to just embrace asexual reproduction as an amoeba, because you only have to get along with yourself – but I digress). Therefore Conscious Uncoupling is the answer to our lack of evolutionary progress in the area of relationships and marriage.

In Conscious Uncoupling there is no blame game – no fault assigned. There is just the realization that we are “uncoupling.” We are now free to move on to meaningful relationship number 2 or 3. Geez, we may find that we are so far behind that we could have 8 to10 and be perfectly fine.

This would be laughable if it were not being embraced by so many. Sadeghi and Sami even go so far as to compare our relationship issues to our evolution from being bugs to humans. Bugs have an exoskeleton that is outside its body and is rigid and unflexible. Humans evolved into an edoskeleton that is on the inside, which allows for wonderful flexibility. The lack of flexibility in bugs is why they did not eventually rule the earth – human edoskeletal flexibility is why we have risen above the bugs to rule the world. The leap our two scientists take from there is to postulate that if we become spiritually and relationally inflexible – by – oh, let’s say – holding marriage to be a lifelong covenant between and man and a woman – we too may become relationally extinct (Personally, I'm now terrified about a relationally-rigid comet or asteroid that will cause me and all other "marriage-rigid" people to become relationally extinct - sigh!). Their point is to say that the flexibility of conscious uncoupling will advance us greatly in the area of relationship evolution.

In Sadeghi and Sami’s article and writings, the word marriage begins to give way to new terms like coupling and uncoupling (Houston we have a problem – sorry, sounded like NASA trying to dock the Space Shuttle). This is done for a reason. If there is no marriage – there can be no divorce. If we have coupled (which we can now, due to evolutionary extrapolation, do 2 to 3 times in our lifetime), then it is so less traumatic to just consciously uncouple. Sounds nice and neat doesn’t it. Be flexible – don’t be like a bug – you’ll only be left behind by the superior species which leaves inflexibility behind.

Here we have radical worldview differences on display for all to see. Worldview begins with things like origins. Our view of origins matters – tremendously! Sadeghi and Sami see our origins coming from an evolutionary viewpoint. There was no creator – and as a result no real purpose for life, marriage, or anything else. There is only the relentless onward march of natural selection to weed out what is weak and reward what is strong. What comes across subtly (maybe not so subtly) in their writings is that traditional, lifelong-covenant oriented marriage is out. It is outmoded, out-dated, and evidently being out-sourced to a much more open view of relationships. Marriage is out and “coupling” is in! We either advance in relationship-evolution – or are left behind and crushed like the rigid marriage bugs we are.

Here is the worldview according to God’s revelation of Himself. You and I, and our ancestors, were never Paleolithic – and given to tiny lifespans that are rising due to evolutionary wisdom and wonder. We were and are God’s creation. When God made us, we were innocent and not subject to death. When our first ancestors, Adam and Eve, chose to rebel against God’s command, we fell – and – we also died. We died spiritually instantly – and later experienced physical death as well. Things have been devolving ever since. As sin increased – things have gotten worse. Life expectancy for our early ancestors was longer than at present. They lived into the hundreds of years. For someone to have died when they were only 75 to 81 years old was tragic. As the years have progressed – our life expectancy has gone down – even if, in the short –term it has gained a little at various points in modern history.

Relationships were instituted by God in Genesis 3, and consisted of marriage between one woman and one man. What God put together was never meant to be something man could separate due to convenience or some uncoupling instinct into which we've evolved. God’s intent was for them to selflessly give themselves to each other for life – maturing together and caring for each other in each and every stage of life – until death parted them.

Our current mess in the area of marriage and family is not due to our being too rigid. It is due to our being too sinful and selfish. But mankind does not like such terms because they imply that there is an absolute right and wrong (something that also comes from one’s worldview as well) which extends even to relationships and marriage. We do not just couple and consciously uncouple. That would indicate that during the entire process we are still two people. God’s Word reveals that in marriage the two become one. Want to know why divorce hurts so badly? It is because the two, who have become one, are now tearing apart – not back into two, but tearing the one in half.

The world may attempt to redefine marriage and divorce into their newest pet terms, Coupling and Conscious Uncoupling; but the reality of God’s sovereignty will remain – as will the fact that in marriage there are no longer two - but one. The pain of divorce will also be just as real as it has always been. We may change the words and even try to alter concepts – but the pain will still be there. The sense of failure in a relationship will still remain. That is because we are the creation of God – we are under the commandments of God – and we will still feel pain when we reject the purposes of God. One bright spot in all this though, is that we also have the grace of God in the gospel of Jesus Christ to put us back together when sin and rebellion have torn us apart. Maybe I’ll start calling that Conscious Redeeming.

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Living "Out of Season"

2/28/2011

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   I would like to share a recent set of articles entitled, "Living Out of Season." These articles deal with those times when we are having a dry spell spiritually. We all go through these times - times when we just don't quite "feel it" spiritually. There may not be a lot of emotion - or umph spiritually. We are not buried in rebellion or sin in our lives. We just don't quite have that "flying through the ceiling" kind of spiritual emotion. How do we make it through times like these? Hopefully, these articles will be a help to you - as we take a little closer look at a section of Scripture in 2 Timothy chapter 4.

     Recently, I’ve been going through a pretty dry spell spiritually. As I was talking to the Lord about this one morning, He brought to my mind a verse out of 2 Timothy chapter 4 where Paul urges young Timothy to be ready both “in season” and “out of season,” to preach the Word. As this verse began to pace back and forth in my understanding—the time spent in meditation began to bless me and encourage me in the Lord. Being “out of season” refers to the plant world where in colder regions trees and other plants go into a type of hibernation during those months. All we see from the outside is that the tree loses its leaves—and it looks barren and sad. That is how I was feeling as I struggled through this spiritually dry time. My emotional state was starting to be too focused on just outward things. That is when the Lord had me take a look into what a tree does when it is dormant.

     Trees are anything but inactive during their “out of season” times. They shed their leaves so that there will be limited limb damage when they face the cold months. In addition to this, they also begin to beef up on certain chemicals in their cells. This concentration of certain chemicals lowers their water content—which allows the tree to survive the harsh winter temperatures without freezing and being damaged. Another thing that is happening takes place under ground. The root system continues to grow throughout the winter months. This slower growth is vital to the health of the tree the next spring. It allows for the tree to provide for the water needs it will have the following year. These are the things the tree is doing in its time “out of season.” Then the Lord began helping me to see applications for my own life through His example in nature.

     When we are “out of season” we need to focus on growing deeper in the Lord. Focusing on the outward will probably depress us—so we should change our focus accordingly. Just as the tree drops its leaves to prepare for winter winds and storms, we should prepare our hearts for troubles and difficulties that are part and parcel of the human experience. As the tree concentrates chemicals to protect itself—we too should   labor to increase the “concentration” of the Word in our minds and hearts. It will keep us from being “frozen” spiritually and falling into spiritual laziness or inactivity when dry times come. Finally, we should seek to deepen our relationship with the Lord during these times—just as the tree focuses on the root system. Grow deeper in the Word, in discipleship, and in “just being faithful” even when we might not “feel” like it. Hopefully these things will encourage you in your “out of season” moments.

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Peanut-Sized Prayer

What to do With a Lousy Quiet Time

Doing the Same Thing Over and Over? (A Call to Faithfulness from Ruth)

Divorce or "Conscious Uncoupling"?

Living "Out of Season"

Biblical Articles

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