Opposites

In Australia, we have great contrasts in our seasons. We have serve droughts and flooding rains. They don’t necessarily follow a set pattern. Oh, how the farmers life would be made so much easier if that were the case. If we were to know for sure that a drought would last only two years and then there would be two years of wet weather. There is, as far as I know, only once where the inhabitants knew how long their good seasons were going to last before they had a drought (well technically a famine) and we can read that story in Genesis 41 and onwards.

So in Australia, our farmers have to largely work on faith. There are those who insist that science will save us each time but science cannot make the rain to fall or to stop. We plant when we know we should in faith that God will send the necessary rain, and we put in dams to save His precious gift when He sends it. It doesn’t stay there but is used to water the stock until they run dry. God is good. If He withholds the rain there is a benefit for the land because while it doesn’t rain there seems to be a hidden process that goes on under the ground that enables it to bounce back fast when it does rain.

So when we face droughts or floods in our lives, do we soak up the blessings that He gives and use them to encourage, bless and serve others. Likewise when we are facing droughts let us thank our God for the hidden enrichment that is going on so that when we are flooded with visible blessings again we will be richer and better able to reach out to others.

“In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” 1 Thessalonians 5:18.