I have a love/hate relationship with rain. I’m a plant lady and being outside, enjoying creation, is how I recharge; the rain keeps everything beautiful and growing. On the other hand, I don’t love getting soaked and I have that hair that turns into a mushroom at the first sign of moisture.

While growing up in Texas, during the summer, the ground would get incredibly dry and parched. You’ve seen the photos where the dirt is just so dry that it cracks? It was a lot like that. When the rain would come, unless it was a huge rain, the ground would be momentarily wet and would expand again, but often would look as if no rain had come at all.

Contrast that with my years in Florida where it rains every day during the summer months. It is humid and muggy, but everything is green and lush. 

There are two main factors here: the amount of rain and the condition of the soil. During the summer, Texas averages 2.7 inches of rain while Florida gets about 7 inches, the most in the nation. Obviously, the more rain you get, the more moisture will exist in the ground. 

This is a lot like our hearts and how we interact with God. We need to be continually interacting with Him through devotions, Bible Study, prayer and other spiritual disciplines (check out our series on spiritual disciplines at peermag.org!). Any interaction is good, but sporadic interaction can leave us feeling dry. We need consistent interaction with Him to grow. 

Like the state of our heart, the soil is important. There’s a great parable, told by Jesus, about this in Matthew 13 that compares our hearts with shallow, rocky soil, thorny soil and fertile soil. If our hearts are like the rocky soil or the thorny soil, in terrible condition, then growth is almost impossible. When our hearts are open and prepared to receive His Word, however, we can experience tremendous growth, thirty, sixty, even a hundred times what was planted.

How is your heart? Is it dry and parched, desperately needing the watering from interacting with God or is it open and ready to receive from Him?