Humor me for a minute...close your eyes and picture the most beautiful flower you’ve ever seen.

Let me guess…a rose, lily, bird of paradise, amaryllis, sunflower… Are any of you picturing a cactus?

Our city has spectacular botanical gardens, but the best time to visit is just after the winter rains. By mid-summer, most of the blooms are dried up. The only ones that can survive the long dry season are the succulents. If you’ve seen them before, they have an unusual kind of beauty that many people enjoy, but they’re not likely to overtake roses as a symbol of romance any time soon.

But while roses might flourish in a carefully tended garden, succulents rule in the wild. They grow in the harshest, hottest, driest environments on earth. Every part of them – leaves, stems, arms – is thick with water-storing cells. When the rain doesn’t come, for months on end, they draw on their own reserves.

Many of us live in spiritual deserts, where fellowship and encouragement are rare commodities. Maybe the only Bible teaching around is coming from us, or in a language we struggle to understand. For some of us, our country of service restricts our ability to meet with other believers or discuss matters of faith openly. Even for those of us with strong local churches, circumstances from family challenges to global pandemics can block us from receiving the nourishment we have come to rely on. For many reasons, we might be feeling a long, dry season.

Psalm 19 encourages us that like the succulents, we can build our own reserves. God’s word is described as giving us refreshment, wisdom, joy, and light. That’s the kind of flourishing I want. And if I “hide God’s word in my heart” (Psalm 119:11), reading it regularly and committing it to memory, storing it in my soul like a succulent stores water in its leaves, I can flourish in any season.