Parched
My soul gets parched easily in this heat. No, I’m not talking about the physical heat wave we are having, I’m talking about the economic climate we are in right now. I guess I am really thinking of this a lot lately because it seems like I am reminded on every corner about what a mess we’ve gotten ourselves in as a country. This of course, then trickles down to businesses and then to families and next thing I know, I’m personally feeling the heat. For any of you that have followed my blog for a bit, you already feel an analogy coming on…here it is:
Today when I looked out on my deck I saw my plants just limp from the oppressive 96-degree weather, it made me realize how quickly my plants get parched when the weather is like this. I got out the hose and just stuck the nozzle right into the middle of the dirt and filled the whole planter to the top. Pretty soon my squash plant wasn’t looking so squashed and even in the beating sun, the leaves looked happy and fresh. 
The Holy Spirit whispered, “That is what it means to be a well watered garden”. Isaiah 58:11 says, “The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.”It is in times when my soul is parched that I find I need to go to the “Well of Living Water” often and for extended periods of time.
Here is my list of tips for how to keep your leaves from withering completely in times of scorching troubles:
1.Know the Gardener personally. God is the original Gardener. He used to take a little stroll in the cool of the day to talk to Adam…(Genesis 3:8) If you don’t know Him on a first-name basis, make it a point to get that step taken care of immediately. We are not wired to go without Living Water. Jesus gives us that Living Water! (Email me if you need to talk about this…this is the most important step!) Do what Adam and Eve did, go on that stroll with God daily! This will help you really get to KNOW Him!
2. Seek the Gardener out often. A quick little dose of water doesn’t help my plants too much in hot weather.They are up, they are down, they are up an hour and then they wilt again if I don’t give them LARGE drinks and when it is hot (like in a storm of life), I need to water them more than once a day. I find that I get up early and have a good, long drink of Living Water…spending time in prayer and in reading the Bible, but within a few hours I can feel like I am all alone facing the giants again when the heat is really on in a trial. Because of this, I like to do several other things. I have some verses that the Lord really spoke clearly to me, written on note cards. I keep them in my purse and even have some taped to my cabinet doors. That way I can let His “words abide in me”. I often turn those into prayers while I am cooking or am sitting in the car waiting for one of my kids. I praise God for being with me in the trial. I talk to God about what He impressed on me in my scripture reading with Him that morning. Ummm, that water starts to just trickle right over my parched soul. God tells us, in Jeremiah 31:25 “I will refresh the weary and satisfy the faint.” Many times I have a little sip or even a big gulp of scripture and prayer before I go to bed. That is pretty refreshing too! I’ve even been known to have one of my scripture cards tucked into my pillowcase! Extreme heat calls for extreme watering methods!
3. Another thing I do is I dwell in praise. Many times I will put on my MP3 player during my quiet time. Sometimes I get off the “Merry-Go-Round of the trial” and I wrap it all up in a little baggie and place it at the Gardener’s feet. I literally say, “Lord Jesus, right now I am not going to pray about the details even one time. I know You already know all the details. Instead, I am going to just look right into Your eyes and praise You.” This is a very delightful way of standing in the sprinklers! His praise just washes over me and waters me right down to my end roots! Some of the songs I love right now are: Gunger: You Make Beautiful Things
4. I go on the offensive. If I am awake with troubling thoughts, I will get up and go to my “Tent of Meeting Chair” and I’ll repeat steps 1-3. But often, if it is the middle of the night, I go on the offensive. I’ve started praying for the Lord to bless me with souls won for every dollar that the old snake of this world has been able to withhold from our company. I am counting on the Lord to show me the “behind the scenes view” when I get to heaven and He will say, “This person right here is in heaven because of that prayer…that one over there will be up here with us soon…” And let me tell you, this will be an all day and all night post-production viewing because this economy well, you get it…I started with how it’s going with this economy, so a soul for every dollar will be a significant contribution to the heavenly population if God says, “Yes” to that prayer! I don’t just pray globally like this though, I have a list of about 75 names of people in my immediate circle of significance that I am praying for by name. I also pray for people that are not dealing fairly with me-and-mine too…and since scripture tells me to “Bless those that curse me” I’ve picked the blessing of their salvation as the blessing I am praying for them. I figure that if the snake of this world can disturb my sleep, then I am going to disturb his eternal plans by asking God to pluck a few out of the snake’s clutches!
5. My last tip is that I am training myself to nestle and not wrestle. My newest scripture penned onto a note card is Isaiah 30:15 which says, “ This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.”I find that last line so chilling that I shudder when I read it. I want to have the salvation that this “repentance and rest in the Sovereign Lord” bring! So I am training my mind to be “Fixed upon Jesus”. Isaiah 26:3 says, “You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in You, all whose thoughts are fixed on You!” So I am fixing…not myself…my mind. I bathe it in thoughts of Jesus Christ, I sing songs to Jesus, I memorize scripture about Jesus, I talk about Jesus…I write about Jesus. And guess what…I am trading parched lips for praising lips. I am like a well-watered garden in a sun-scorched land. I wonder what fruit in my life the gardener is growing…I think it might be watermelon!
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Vicki Feinn was raised in a Christian home and accepted Jesus as her savior at the age of five. At the age of eleven she gave herself to the Lord to be used in any way He wanted to use her. 
