This hardened stony ground

"You care for the land and water it; you enrich it abundantly. The streams of God are filled with water to provide the people with grain, for so you have ordained it.  You drench its furrows and level its ridges; you soften it with showers and bless its crops.  You crown the year with your bounty and your carts overflow with abundance.  The grasslands of the wilderness overflow; the hills are clothed with gladness.  The meadows are covered with flocks and the valleys are mantled with grain; they shout for joy and sing."

 Psalm 65:9

I live in a house that was built in the 1930's.  It was built to house the builders of the Shasta Dam.  It is a fifteen minute drive from our house to the Shasta Dam.  The dam was built to keep the Sacramento River from overflowing into the valley below.  The results of this architectural achievement is that BAM.  Lake Shasta.  If you haven't heard of it, you should look it up.  It's quite a hot spot for the water skiing, house boating, water-sport-in-general type of people.  

(I am not one of them, but I will strongly support you participating in those activities while I sit on my couch and read a book.)

     Until yesterday, I had never been to the Shasta Dam.  Sunday mornings are usually church mornings.  But one of the children was not well enough to attend Sunday School, so we decided to cozy up and take a little drive.  There are so many pretty places to drive around here.  We drove to see the dam, and the water it was keeping in.  It was beautiful and sad.  

Are you beautiful, and sad?

The water was low; I had never seen this particular lake, but it was obvious that the water level should be higher than it was.  Still, the atmosphere was serene and peaceful.  Probably because it is winter, and all of those water sport lovers were not participating in said activities.  Also because the visitor's center was not open to leading tours on a Sunday.  And so there were four of us.  

     Have you ever been some place where the light around you looks golden, and not like natural sunlight that hurts your eyes, but actually golden?  As if everything that stood within it's covering would also become dusted with gold, by association?  That is what it felt like there, with us, there.  And so we did what you do when the light is golden and good.  We took pictures without wearing sunglasses. 

 You could see the green on the hills all around, and you could see the green in our eyes. 

I stood there and looked at the dwindling water level and once again prayed for rain.

Not too much, and not too little, but enough at this point would still be a lot.  There were all of those days in December when it rained and rained for so many days in a row.  But then the rain dried up, and we have not had any rain since.  

 My spirit has been watered, though.

I get up early.  Very early, every morning, and I pray.

I don't just say words to God, I actually lay flat with my face on the ground, because to me, though I do not need to do that to impress God, it's the physical form in which my heart and mind belong all the time.  Just to lay flat out at the feet of the Lord.  I picture it just like that; that God is right there, and that I am at his feet, and I can see the bottom, just the very bottom, of His throne and possibly His robe flowing over His feet.  And in that moment, I never feel alone.  That moment is what carries me through the rest of the day. 

 (It's not just a moment, it's for at least an hour.) 

One thing I have prayed about myself for many years is this: "Lord, I am just a rock; a tiny pebble from which you cannot squeeze anything.  But YOU are THE ROCK, the source from which the living water flows.  So I pray that on you I can fall, and rest, and that your flood will overflow me until it is flowing from within me, so that I cannot help but overflow to everyone and everything around me."

Every day.

For the past ten years, I have prayed this prayer every day.

And in the midst of that ten years, there have been trials, there have been griefs and utter brokenness of things that should never have been broken.  I do not turn away from the heat of this truth.  But the getting out of bed while it is completely dark out, and the laying flat on the floor and giving God all of my attention and all of my pieces and parts to rearrange as He will, has only happened within the past year.  And it has made a difference.  Not just in me, but in every member of my family.  I see this.  I think it's just that when the Lord Himself is filling you with Himself, some of that overflow cannot help but splash on everything around you.

The water was low in the lake, but the land around was all green. and in the golden light of glory, I could see that the hillside was growing and full of life.

After looking at the scenery and snapping a few pictures, we drove back to our house.  To get to and from the Shasta Dam, you drive through an old little town.  It's probably as old as our house, as it was  also built and booming at the time the dam was being built.  The buildings are original, in this adorable little town among the hills of promise.  

My husband informs me that the town is not as nice on the inside as it looks on the surface.  There are  drugs, there is crime.  So Name it "Anytown America."  And wonder to yourself, as I do, if this is in any part why the rains have stopped.  Because though mankind now has the technology to fairly accurately predict the weather for the next ten days or more, we cannot do anything to change what we are about to face.  Only God can change the weather.  

Unless maybe we can.

I thought of this as I read Psalm 65 this morning.  The Psalm of David begins, 

"Praise awaits you, our God in Zion; to You our vows will be fulfilled."

Psalm 65:1

Have we fulfilled our vows to the Lord?  Have we been doing what we say we will do, which is what He tells us to do, if we are Followers or Jesus Christ?  Or are we allowing our vows to be broken and still expecting to be well watered?

I do not have the answer.  But I am reading slowly through the gospels once again, Matthew, Mark Luke and John, and I am asking the Lord to reveal His heart to me, to explain it to me in the way that He actually meant it, and I am taking notes.

I will be sharing these in the days to come.

Because when you lay your heart bare to Lord of Lords, and you seek after Him, He will reveal things to your heart. 

"This is what the Lord says, he who made the earth, the LORD who formed it and established it-the LORD is his name: 'Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know."

Jeremiah 33:2-3

(Now this verse above was a specific word, specifically to the prophet Jeremiah, but it is a true fact of the nature of God.)

 I do not have itching ears that want to hear what I want to hear. 

"In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke, and encourage-with great patience and careful instruction.  For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine.  Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.  They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.  But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work or an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry."

2 Timothy 4:1-5

(this was written specifically from the apostle Paul to Timothy, but it is good advice for today, as well, and an accurate sociological observation; that "time" to which he referred is happening now.)

 I want to hear what Jesus is accurately saying.  I want to be full of the knowledge and wisdom of the ages.

And probably when I read it, a tree will be just a tree,

But have you thought about how many types of trees there are?  Even the greenest, widest, and tallest of them need water.  

And I need water, too.

"Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."

"Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep.  Where can you get this living water?  Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?'

Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.  Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

John 4:9-14