Well-Watered Hillsides

California is nicknamed The Golden State, apparently for multiple reasons.  The golden poppy is the official state flower, the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco is instantly recognizable worldwide, and there was a gold rush here in 1849.  While never actually confirmed, I was once told that California was also called the Golden State because much of the land looks yellow most of the year, colored by the dried up vegetation that covers the landscape.  Having lived in Southern California, where it often does not rain for 6 straight months or more, the images of yellow, tinder-covered foothills that get set ablaze during the hot summer months are all too familiar, especially during the most recent period of extended drought that lasted from 2011 to 2017.  The drought in California was eventually declared over in early 2017, thanks to torrents of heavy winter precipitation, and this brought forth the most unusual transformation to the Southern California landscape.  The dried yellow-brown hillsides have been replaced with carpets of green, awash with beautiful wildflowers in various shades of yellow, orange, white and purple.  My daughter and I have taken literally thousands of photographs at local state parks, nature trails and flower fields.

However, I know that this transformation of color is short-lived.  There hasn’t been much rain for the last 3 months.  The vegetation will be yellow again in a few weeks, and the late summer heat will bring forth blazing brushfires that will soon consume many hills until rain returns in the winter.

Just as the plants and flowers of the hills need rain to grow, our spiritual condition requires regular nourishment and watering as well.  When we feel far away from God, we often say that we are spiritually “dry”.  David expressed his longing for God as a consuming thirst for Him:

As a deer pants for flowing streams,
so pants my soul for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?  (Psalm 42:1-2)

We become spiritually dry when we are separated from God, our creator, and the source of meaning for our existence.  Nothing separates us from God quicker than unconfessed sin in our lives:

Behold, the LORD's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save,
or his ear dull, that it cannot hear;
but your iniquities have made a separation
between you and your God,
and your sins have hidden his face from you
so that he does not hear.  (Isaiah 59:1-2)

On the other hand, he who walks in obedience to God’s ways are described as a well-watered tree:

Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.

He is like a tree
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.  (Psalm 1:1-3)

How are we doing?  Are we like well-watered plants, thriving, flowering and fruitful, or are we parched and lifeless?  We do well to examine ourselves to see whether sin is keeping spiritual nourishment from our lives.  If we continue to do what displeases God, even if we seem to thriving, it won’t be long before the soil beneath us dries up.