Competing against the thwap-thwap sound of the windshield wipers, the rain beat a rhythmic pattern against the car. Driving out of town for a retreat with our youth leaders, I was thankful for the chance to spend time with them.

The rain outside, however, fell in contrast to the desert condition inside my heart. His presence real, I felt that Jesus was near, but I wrestled with feelings of significant disappointment in ministry. Soil that had seemed to promise such beauty now seemed hardened by relentless heat and wind. Nettles of discouragement readily flourished in the dry, wounded places of my heart.

Jeremiah 17:7-8 says, “Blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence. They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit.” In the moment of adversity, however, we sometimes believe that something has gone dreadfully awry. Wanting God to rescue us, we cry out in our pain. We wonder at His timing, at His seeming silence. All the while, in that place of confusion and uncertainty, our spirit presses through the hardened clay of surface living, pushes aside the gravel of self- focus, and—in a refusal to give up—finds living water at the point of desperation (John 7:38).

He is real, and so are His promises.

Jesus—who came and lived among us—“grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground” (Isaiah 53:2). In the certainty of His grace and the steadfastness of His hand, He can be trusted. The refreshing, restoring rains will come again.