Cares of this World

Yesterday, I was spending time in prayer; I was walking around my house attempting to worship God. It felt as if I were hitting a brick wall. I said ‘God, I feel so dry!’ I thought about the scriptures in Ezekiel about the dry bones and I wondered ‘is there any life here today?’ After a while I stopped and began to study, hoping that would help.

Then the Lord asked me a question; He said ‘is worship seasonal?’ I knew I didn’t have the correct answer or He wouldn’t have asked. For you to understand this, let me take you back a week or so ago. A little over a week ago, I was talking with a friend and we were talking about how sometimes it seems so easy to pray and worship and fast and then sometimes it is work. She asked me ‘do you think those times are seasonal?’ I said ‘yes, I guess they are.’

Today, when God asked me that question, I knew I had given the wrong answer. We were referring to seasons in our lives, but the answer was still wrong. When God asked me that question, I didn’t answer, knowing I had the wrong answer. Then He said ‘is rain seasonal?’ I continued to listen; He said ‘if you didn’t have rain for an entire season, what would you have?’ I said ‘a drought.’ Ahhh, finally I had an answer correct.

A drought is a deficiency of moisture that results in adverse impacts on people, animals, or vegetation. The Webster’s dictionary also says it causes major imbalance.

So that is what I was feeling – drought, and convincing myself that it was a seasonal thing. There would be no drought if there were rain and there would be rain if I had ‘come up to worship.’ Remember the teaching No Worship – No Rain? God takes me back to that one over and over, especially when I am feeling dry.

Drought affects everything, nothing grows or yields what it is supposed to yield. Last year, we had a drought and it affected all the harvests in our area. There were precious few strawberries, no blueberries, no blackberries, and very little vegetables. Now, this girl LOVES berries and I was so disappointed that I continue to pray that all the plants would be well watered this year so I could have all those wonderful berries. Thank God I have a freezer full of strawberries, blackberries and blueberries!

Therefore, I began to seek God to find out how I got to this dry place, especially when I seek Him daily for a fresh Word for you, our readers. And He is always faithful to you – to give you a fresh Word, but that is totally different from my personal time with Him, at least it should be.

I was asking God ‘what happened? And ‘how did it happen so fast?’ He spoke one sentence to me; the cares of this world.

In Mark 4:19, we find the sower who sows in thorns and what happens when they do, I can tell you, you don’t want to be one of those. The Bible says the cares of the world, the deceitfulness of riches choke the Word and it becomes unfruitful.

Let me share some insight with you that I found from my word study on this scripture. Cares are distractions and it literally means to divide. To choke is to suffocate and to hinder growth (sounds a lot like no rain). And unfruitful means that it is not yielding what it ought to yield.Therefore, when distractions come, they divide your focus and they eventually suffocate and hinder the growth of the Word you have sown, and the end result is that the Word does not produce or yield what it ought to. Hmmm…

Distractions. It seems my last month has been filled with distractions and I kept feeling like it was things I needed to deal with – I didn’t realize those distractions had come for one purpose – to divide. You know that old saying ‘divide and conquer?’ That is what the enemy meant to do. Because he knows as long as I have my mind stayed upon God, I will have perfect peace, shalom – nothing broken and nothing missing.

The only solution is to get back on track. To tell the distractions to go and the things I need to deal with will have to wait until I have spent my time with God – become refreshed in Him and even more than that – until I have ministered to Him.

I know we all have distractions and cares of this world. But we can’t allow them to take our mind off God. We can’t allow them to choke the Word of God that we have sown in our hearts and cause it to become unfruitful. We have to keep our eyes upon Him and He will make sure everything else works out.
Are you feeling a bit dry today? Does it feel like a drought coming on? Then stop what you are doing and spend some time worshiping God. Remember, He said if you come up to worship Him, on you, there shall be an abundance of rain. Don’t allow the cares of this world to distract you or take your eyes off God. Instead, allow God to cause the Word sown in your heart to become fruitful – yielding exactly what it is supposed to yield.

It reminds me of the scripture in 2 Chronicles 26:5; it says “as long as he sought the Lord, the Lord caused him to prosper.”

I truly believe it is that way for us today – as long as we truly seek the Lord, He will cause us to prosper. To prosper in our soul, our mind, our emotions, our finances, our health, or families – it’s a promise and God can’t lie.