The Fallow

Read this the way you would tend ground that has not been planted in a long time: patient, honest, willing to do the actual work of breaking before anything new goes in.

For the next thirty days you are going to sit with a season many people rush past or feel ashamed of: the fallow one, unplanted, waiting, uncertain whether anything will grow here again. This will not be a book that tells you to hurry through it. It is a book for the actual middle of waiting, where the ground is real and the God who is not done with it is real too.

The work is arranged in three movements of ten days each. First, Waiting: the discipline and honesty of a season not yet resolved. Then, Breaking Up: the active, sometimes uncomfortable work of clearing the ground itself. Then, Sowing: planting in hope, even before the harvest is visible.

Each day gives you the same tools. A verse to anchor you. A short reflection to be read slowly, not skimmed. A response to actually live out, because truth you only think about changes little in unplanted ground. A prayer to pray in your own words. And one line to carry with you into the day ahead.

How to use it: read one day at a time, at whatever pace this particular season actually requires. Let the reflection meet you exactly where you are, not where you wish you already were. Actually do the response. Pray the prayer, then keep praying in your own words.

All Scripture here is from the King James Version. Your ground is not wasted, even fallow. Begin.