Dry Seasons

See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.

Isaiah 43:19 (NIV)

In Isaiah 43, Israel has been through a tough, dry season of exile. In fact, this dry season was so depleting, it is pictured as a pathless progress through a hot, waterless desert. It was waking up every day to dry-mouthed dehydration, to constant struggle, to difficult movement that goes nowhere. Every day felt like an endless press, no advancement, no inner feeling of satisfaction.

Dry seasons feel like that, don't they?

These seasons are experienced in all facets of life. When we pursue our dreams that seem to stay perpetually distant, for example. Or in our relationships with one another, where relating to certain people is a constant uphill journey. Even in our own emotionality—where you're almost scared to massage a positive thought because every other time you've attempted to do so, that thought has been hijacked by an onslaught of negative thinking. These things are like going through a wilderness where there are no pathways, and they leave us emotionally dehydrated.

You don’t choose dry seasons; they choose you. They're like wildernesses with no water, journeys with no inner sense of satisfaction or fulfillment. And this text teaches us (some of us won't like it) that God, in fact, purposes dry seasons in our lives for spiritual development.

He does so because He knows the struggle has a contribution to make. He allows dry seasons to purge and to prune and to perfect and to progress and to grow and to mature us in areas that constant provision and easy access would’ve never been able to produce. In fact, had the road been too easy, had the foliage been cleared, had there been water along the pathway, our attention would have been distracted. Being dry-mouthed and thirsty causes us to center our devotion, and doing so causes us to then divorce distraction so that we can make the necessary pivots in areas of our lives that help us to shake hands with spiritual growth.

Many of us would not be where we are today if we had not had to navigate some dry seasons through rough wilderness. God strings these dry seasons along the journey of our lives to shape us, to mold us, and to conform us into the image of His Son.

Are you in a dry season of life right now? If so, rejoice in knowing that God is using it to work in your life!