Back to the Desert

Good morning and a grateful 'Thank you!' to God for the nice morning after two hot days. It seems that this year is a back-to-the-desert year for us. The winter was warm, the spring dry, and the summer is shaping up to be too hot. The winter wheat did not do well under those conditions and the harvest may be about half an average yield and three weeks early. We enjoy the years of milder summers with average or better rainfall, preferably without those cold hard bits that do so much damage, and winters of good snows that don't cause too many delays in our lives. However, from time to time we get the years where we recall why the high plains earned the title of 'desert' at one time. We know that this is not in fact a desert, but it is an arid region. The area does have its 'monsoon' season most years that brings rain in the form of thunderstorms. We also don't have a real monsoon, though the weather wogs on the telly call it that. One good monsoon season such as they have in Asia would probably wash all of our soil, county roads, grass, trees, and assorted houses and buildings right into the Caribbean Sea via Platte-Missouri-Mississippi River drainage. In our lives, we have similar seasons.

One year, we may have abundant provision, but not too much too soon. In another year, we endure a back-to-the-desert sort of year where it seems that we will never have enough provision. Of course, 'never' is a word that we cannot know and do not use very well. Never for us means a year or two, or perhaps a decade or two, but we don't know never as God knows never. A time of testing may seem endless, but we know very well that this life and its tribulations will end one day. Other trips to the desert for us may seem to have only that one end as a certainty, but God sees the end that we cannot see.

We might also call this a year of fire. Fires are burning in New Mexico, Colorado, and right here in our county. Grass fires on the plains and forest fires in the mountains are part of the natural cycle, but some years are worse than others. God takes us carefully into the heat to burn away the dross in our lives. This time of heating is never (there I go again!) fun, but we must have faith in God's masterful hand on our lives. Not every year or month or day in our lives will be one of flame and desert. Periods of rest are important for our growth too. I suppose it all comes down to trusting in God to lead not just into the desert for a time, but also back out again. A good way to increase the prayers for rain is to have a year of drought. God may send us out to the desert just to hear our prayers again.

Bucky