We have enjoyed a warm sunny summer after a month of rain in June. Yvonne and I were walking on the trails behind our house in the Kimberley Nature Park this morning. Wow, how dry the forest is! At one point Yvonne noticed that every footstep set off a cloud of dust! And we looked in our garden and noticed how the vegetables seemed to be crying for moisture. I can almost hear them applauding when I turn on the sprinkler at night. Sometimes our spiritual lives get that way too. We go through seasons of drought. (I wonder if this is also true of churches.)

You know the feeling:  C.H. Spurgeon writes, “We feel very barren. Prayer is lifeless, love is cold, faith is weak, and each grace in the garden of our heart languishes and droops. We are like flowers in the hot sun, thirsting for a refreshing shower.”

Spurgeon points us to two Old Testament Scriptures:

Isaiah 54:1 “Sing, O barren woman…burst into song, shout for joy”

Isaiah 61:3 “They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendour.”

Spurgeon won’t let us ‘pout in the drought’: here’s his exhortation – “The experience of barrenness is painful, but the Lord’s visitations are delightful. Sing on, for you will be fruitful soon.”