Relief Sometimes Arrives in the Dark

After the long days waiting, long past the verdant suppleness of promise that bloomed in spring, beyond the brown and dusty dryness of our summer, when each frond despaired of relief, it comes steady. In the dark before dawn, the blessing starts to trickle by ones and twos, then moves into a steady, wet rhythm, washing down the grateful stalks.

Sometime good things are a long time in coming. Sometimes relief comes after the curling up of souls, and the browning of hope.

And sometimes it begins while it’s still dark.

There is grief in our dry places. Questioning, when our deserts swallow us whole. Hemmed in as we are, by our human time-keeping, relief is always thought best received Now.

“Why then?…If only…”

Numbers 20:2-4

Rest assured, Dear Ones, if we seek to hurry God, He may bend His plan in mercy. But it would be wise to prepare our hearts to live through the learning.

The water spilled forth in abundance from that dry and hardened stone, gushing relief over clamoring hearts.

But with relief, in the mercy of adjusted Plans, often comes the necessity of training our hearts.

“Because you have not believed Me, to treat Me as holy in the sight of the sons of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.” V. 12

He calls us to treat Him as holy, and His plans as such–

To trust His wise and loving unfolding of our stories.

You make the dawn and the sunset shout for joy.

You visit the earth and cause it to overflow;
You greatly enrich it;
The stream of God is full of water;
You prepare their grain, for thus You prepare the earth.
You water its furrows abundantly,
You settle its ridges,
You soften it with showers,
You bless its growth.

Psalm 65:8-10

Let us encourage each other to hold fast in the deserts,
and trust His heart of abundant provision.

Be blessed today and always.

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