3-minute read
This weekend, the snow finally melted.
February in Denver was one of the snowiest on record, so there was quite a bit hanging around on our lawn. But when the temperature hit 68 on Sunday, the snow had no choice but to give up the ghost and disappear.
With the whiteness gone, I can finally see the grass that’s been hiding underneath it more clearly… and it’s not a pretty sight.
What used to be beautiful green grass is now a pale, sickly brown. It looks like someone covered our lawn in tan, mangy carpet remnants.
Staring at the grass yesterday, I kept thinking about how I need to fertilize.
Fertilizing your lawn is an odd thing. You take a big sack of what looks like sand—or cumin—and you dump it into a spreader. Then, you walk all over your lawn, pushing that spreader around while it spits out grass fertilizer.
What happens after you fertilize the grass?
Honestly, nothing.
You just have this yard of brown grass, now with flecks of fertilizer all around it.
Here’s the thing: I’ll probably procrastinate fertilizing.
Why? (Besides the fact that there’s a good chance we’ll get some pre-Easter snow here in Denver…) Because there’s no immediate benefit to fertilizing.
When you’re done fertilizing your brown lawn… you’re left with a brown lawn.
To be honest, I’d be much more prone to rush to fertilize if right after I spread the stuff all over my yard—POP! POP! POP!—all that brown grass sprung up green!
How great would that be?! Home Depot wouldn’t be able to keep the stuff in stock if fertilizer worked right away!
But that’s not how it works. You fertilize your lawn to make it healthy and green… a few months from the day you fertilize.
That means that fertilizing a lawn takes faith.
Faith that doing something that doesn’t look like it’s doing anything right away will eventually have a positive effect, somewhere down the line.
So… let’s just say that a brown, dried, dying lawn is a little bit like our souls sometimes.
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Here’s a quote that’s been a favorite of mine for years.
It’s from a wonderful—but odd—little book by C.S. Lewis, a Christian thinker and writer best known for The Chronicles of Narnia series and Mere Christianity.
His book The Screwtape Letters comes at spiritual matters from an unusual angle. The book is a collection of imaginary “letters” written from Screwtape, a demon from hell (!) to his nephew and demon acolyte Wormwood, instructing him in ways to best take down (“steal, kill, and destroy” as it says in Scriptures) the human he’s tasked with tormenting.
The letters are a bit confusing to read because when Screwtape references “the enemy,” he’s referring to God. But it’s a great way to get a sense of the tactics of Satan and his minions. (It’s also a funny and entertaining read.)
At one point, Wormwood’s human is feeling spiritually dry… almost spiritually dead. After the initial flush of excited feelings after coming to know Jesus, the human has fallen on challenging times. His positive emotions about following God have abated. He’s in a valley.
Wormwood is thrilled! He thinks this lack of spiritual excitement is good news! His human is feeling numb toward God! How great is this!
But Screwtape warns Wormwood not to be arrogant, thinking his charge is doomed. In fact, this is a dangerous time for the work of the devil as this human could possibly be on the cusp of an important step taking him closer to God.
“Be not deceived, Wormwood, our cause is never more in jeopardy than when a human, no longer desiring but still intending to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe in which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.”
I love that.
Screwtape says that the plans of Satan (the deceiver! the destroyer!) are never more in danger than when a Jesus follower—while running low on desire and emotion—still takes a step toward Him, doing something to follow God.
Singing a praise song.
Reading Scripture.
Having a spiritual conversation with someone.
Seeking out help.
Doing what’s morally right.
Obeying God.
That’s hard, right? It’s hard to take steps toward God when you don’t feel like doing it. When you don’t feel the immediate benefit.
It’s so hard.
Yet… that’s faith.
*****
You fertilize the yard when it needs it, even though you don’t get to enjoy the immediate results.
In the same way, God wants us following Him even when doing so doesn’t seem to produce any immediate positive results… or emotions.
In time, it will… but for now? It may not.
This isn’t about religious duty, though… or doing-it for doing-it’s sake.
It’s about knowing it’s good for you to do something… and doing it… even though it may not be immediately beneficial (at least from your perspective).
Me, personally? I’m in a dry season. I’m not getting a lot of “feelings” from God. Not a ton of joy or emotional bumps. My spiritual life can feel like a bit of a grind.
It’s in these seasons that I’m tempted to let my spiritual growth slide. “Why bother?”
Yet, something in me knows Lewis is right. Satan wins a victory in me when in those seasons, I don’t “fertilize” my soul.
God wins (which, of course, means I win, too) when I take the faith step… do what’s right… obey Him anyway… even though I can’t sense any benefit, anon.
It’s hard… but it’s good. And it will be good for me… in time.
*****
How are you doing spiritually?
Feeling alive and flush with nearness to God and emotion?
Or are you in a dry season? A dark night? A shadowed valley?
This are hard times…
But maybe this is the time to exercise your faith—even though it seems so small (small as a mustard seed?)—by doing the one… right… next… thing… God wants you to do.
Fertilizing your soul with a bit of obedience.
One more time:
“Be not deceived, Wormwood… our cause is never more in jeopardy than when a human, no longer desiring but still intending to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe in which every trace of Him seems to have vanished…. and asks why he has been forsaken… and still obeys.”