Friday, October 18, 2002
We met Larry when we went to explore some land that my wife's great-grandfather had homesteaded more than a century ago. That land is now part of a much larger farm that Larry owns - a farm that has been suffering from four years of serious drought conditions. The land is dust, the grass is very brittle, and the corn has stopped growing at about two feet high. Like many farmers in the area, Larry has had to sell half his herd of cows because there will be nothing to feed them in the winter. I didn't know where Larry stood spiritually, but I asked him if we could pray with him, right there in his field, and he said, "Yes." After I finished praying, Larry said quietly, "We've been doing a lot of that lately."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Drought School."
It's amazing how a drought can get you praying - any kind of drought - even if the drought is financial, or medical, or family, or one of life's emotional or spiritual dry spells. I was reminded of what one veteran farmer told me a few years ago. He said, "The farther we have gotten from the land, the farther we have gotten from God." There's something to that.
When you're totally dependent on things you can't possibly control - as a farmer is on the weather, for example, you turn to God a lot more. In our high-tech world, it's easy to forget we need God because it feels like we've got control of things - which by the way is the illusion of control. But God still sends those "drought" times when we are facing things where the answer is way beyond our control. And our word for today from the Word of God explains one of the main purposes of those hard, dry times.
In 2 Corinthians 1:8-9, the Apostle Paul opens up his heart and lets us see some of the pain and battering he's been through. He says, "We do not want you to be uninformed about the hardships we suffered...We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death." Maybe you can relate to some of those words - "hardships," "under great pressure," "far beyond our ability to endure," "despairing even of life."
Paul goes on to reveal the purpose in these "drought" times. "But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God who raises the dead." The hard, hurting times break our stubborn self-reliance and almost force us to throw ourselves totally on God's resources. I can't fix this. I can't change this. I can't make this happen. I've tried. Those are times of personal bankruptcy that drive us to the unlimited resources of Almighty God. It sometimes takes those "droughts" to wean us from the other things we'd rather trust in - our own ability or maybe some human saviors. If we can possibly depend on something other than God, we usually will. So God brings us to those moments when nothing other than God can possibly change it or fix it.
You may be in one of those seasons right now. Well, if you're going to get the pain, get the point - which may be to lose yourself in your Lord as you never have before. To come to Him in desperate dependency, opening yourself up completely to His greater plans, to His greater power, to His total control of you and all you care about.
Life's "drought" times are a powerful tool in God's tool kit to drive us into His strong and loving arms. Let Him shower His life and refreshment and encouragement on your soul. Then, whether the relief you've been praying for comes sooner or later, you'll be experiencing more of God's power and love than you've ever felt before.