Encouragement and FaithSenior Adults and Faith

Grass can’t thrive off a few drops of water.

 

Nearly every morning we get up while it’s still dark and go for a sunrise-walk. A few days ago while we were getting ready for our walk, I heard a few drops of water. We hadn’t seen rain in a good while, so I rushed outside to watch the shower. After waiting for a while, I counted 13 drops on our deck. That kind of sprinkle doesn’t help scorched grass.

 

Is your relationship vibrant-green or burnt-brown?

 

We live in the Texas Hill Country and right now our once beautiful, healthy grass is burnt-brown. Some of it is barely surviving. Most of it is slowly dying. Some is already dead. Just two months ago the golf-greens and pasture leading up to the hills were a deep, vibrant-green. They were thriving with life. But grass can’t thrive off 13 drops of water. The same is true for our relationships.

 

Volume and consistency are necessities for healthy grass and healthy souls.

 

Maybe the Lord was speaking to me when I had a thought about those 13 drops. Neither our parched-grass nor our parch-souls can flourish with only a few, occasional drops of spiritual nourishment. Volume and consistency are necessities for healthy grass and healthy souls.

 

A sure way to a slow relational or spiritual drought and death

 

Sometimes we get to thinking a few drops of scripture here and there, a prayer now and then, an occasional trip to a church service, and a good deed once in a while, will produce a vibrant faith. It won’t. That approach to a healthy faith is a sure way to a slow relational or spiritual drought and death. No relationship can be enjoyable and meaningful with such a trickle of attention. Many relationships between spouses and loved-ones become dry and empty because the partners only occasionally give a few drops of attention to each other then wonder where the joy has gone.

 

A few drops of faith are all we need

 

If we really want an enjoyable, peaceful, strong and thriving relationship with someone we love and with our heavenly Father, it’s going to take a consistent and heavy outpouring of our deepest thoughts, most fervent heart-felt love and devoted lives. The passion for our relationship with Jesus must be far more intense than the passion for our modern mechanical devices. Have we accepted society’s false advertisements that a few drops of faith are all we need? Our culture convinces us that we shouldn’t over-do it because too much religion is fanaticism. But there’s never too much stuff. So we keep sprinkling our scorched souls and relationships with a few drips of faith and flood our minds, hearts and lives with things.

 

 

An about-face approach to faith

 

I wonder if what we need is a radical return to a radical, life-changing kind of faith that immerses us in God’s love and work. Do we need an about-face approach to faith? What would happen if we got back to the kind of relationship with our heavenly Father that sets hearts completely free from circumstances? Should our big concern be to help our family members intimately care for each other and send people out into their neighborhoods to show the love of God to the most unloved, unhealthy and undeserving?

 

What to do when you are surrounded by droughts and emptiness

 

Even when there are only 13 drops of water on the outside, our hearts can be filled to over-flowing with God’s presence. When we are surrounded by droughts and emptiness, what would it be like to have the Lord-of-the-rains give us a steady, inner, spiritual-shower that produces beautiful, healthy gratitude and love that would spill-over into the lives of those around us? How’s the weather in your heart?