In 2005, my family took a road trip through the American Southwest that included the Grand Canyon and the Painted Desert.

I had visited this part of the country before. I remembered an alien landscape: miles of uninterrupted dirt and sand. I remembered the red dust, the purple mountains and mesas in the distance, and the straggling tumbleweeds. I thought I knew what to expect.

But I was mistaken.

Instead of rock and sand as far as the eye could see, the desert was a veritable garden of beautiful flowers of every conceivable color. Normally, the Painted Desert is so named because of its striated rock in shades of ochre, red, and lavender. But in 2005, because of unusually wet weather, plants that had lain dormant for a century bloomed, carpeting the desert.

Blues and greens, reds and yellows of all shades and hues greeted us. Not only did the flowers provide a visual feast, but they also perfumed the air: a virtually intoxicating fragrance of Paradise.

In many ways, we are like a desert. The seeds of God’s Word that are planted in our hearts can lie dormant because they haven’t been watered with a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. We need Him like plants need rain. He alone can make our souls and our spirits bloom.