The Soil of My Soul

I don't know how much experience you have with growing stuff.  I don't know if you grew up working in a garden or riding a tractor around the fields.  For all I know you could be like my college roommate and kill everything green you touch.  But I grew up in an agricultural family.  My Daddy has only ever worked on farms, with farm equipment and with farmers.  My grandparents had two gardens and an orchard at their house; if you showed up for a day anytime from June to October you would spend some time in the garden.  My parents are country folk who grow a large part of their own produce and they enjoy doing it.  There is something that makes you feel capable when you can grow and care for your own food.  It's satisfying to sit down for a meal and realize that less then 5% of it was purchased.  But I'm not here to convince you to start growing your own food (even though you really should), I'm here because I want to talk about something that happens when there is no rain, no water, on the ground.

I grew up in an area with some really great soil.  I know that's a funny comment, but it's true.  The soil (it's not dirt.  There is a subtle difference between dirt and soil.  You don't want dirt, but soil is so good to have.) is rich and it smells rich.  There is a smell that accompanies freshly turned soil.  It smells like life should.  Fresh, wholesome, vibrant.  Good soil smells like it's alive and new.  Really good soil smells borderline tasty (I'm just being honest here).  The life in soil comes from the moisture in the soil.  When your soil gets dry it starts to die.  The life seeps out of it.  Nothing grows or sustains in dry soil, not even cacti at a certain point.  When soil gets really dry it turns into what I would call dirt.  You don't want it.  It has no purpose when you are trying to feed your family.  It does pretty good on a softball field, but is bad for a garden.  Eventually the ground begins to crack and break apart.  It's not pretty, especially if your life is tied to the state of the ground.

I'm writing about this because I have been learning a lot about thirsting for God.  Recently God has revealed an area of sin in my life.  For years I knew that something was wrong, that I was hurting and wasn't being freed like I knew God could.  Recently God revealed that it was a result of my not desiring Him first.  At a point in my life I had been plugged up to God.  We were spending all kinds of time together, he was teaching me and growing me and changing me into the woman that he made me to be.  Then I got distracted and choose to pursue this other thing that looked like everything I could ever want.  I stopped desiring God and I started drying up.  The water started seeping out of the soil of my soul.  I wore a face of peace in spite of the fact that I was dieing on the inside.  This past month God has started raining on me.  After the sin was brought to light and forgiven, the rain came.  This process began when I moved recently and has come to the point that I am now breathing in the smell of living soil in my life.  Seeds that were long ago planted, forsaken, dried up, and forgotten are beginning to bud and grow again.  Trees of hope that I cut down in my reckless choices are re-sprouting as God rains on the soil in my life.

It is a beautiful time and I am blown away that God would choose to renew me.  That he cares enough about the dead state of my heart to bring new growth.  My heart is now bent on learning how to desire him and him alone again.  I am re-learning how to hunger and thirst after Christ, and it is good to be thirsty in a flood.  God will never run out for me and my desire.  He will always satisfy in ways that nothing and no one else ever will.

If you find that your heart is a dried up and barren waste land, turn to the one who comes like the rain.  Turn to him that will heal the cracked and broken land in your soul.  He desires to flood you with his love and provision.  You must rest and know that to be true today.  He will come to you and heal your land.

Praising God in the rain,

Mel C