When the Desert Couldn't Help But Bloom

Every few years, something miraculous happens in Chile's Atacama Desert — the driest place on Earth. After an unexpected rainfall, the barren, cracked ground that hasn't seen moisture in years suddenly erupts with millions of wildflowers. Pink, purple, yellow, white — an explosion of color across a landscape everyone had written off as dead.

In 2015, an unusually heavy rain triggered one of the most spectacular blooms in recorded history. Tourists flew in from around the world to witness it. Scientists studied it. Photographers captured it. But nobody orchestrated it. Nobody planted those seeds or scheduled the rain. The desert simply responded to what it had been given, and the response was breathtaking.

Psalm 98 paints this same kind of picture, but on a cosmic scale. The psalmist doesn't just invite people to praise the Almighty. He calls on the seas to roar, the rivers to clap their hands, the mountains to sing together for joy. Creation itself cannot stay silent before the One who has done marvelous things.

The Atacama reminds us that praise isn't something we manufacture. It's the natural response of anything that has been touched by the goodness of God. When the Most High reveals His salvation and righteousness, even the driest, most barren places in our lives can't help but bloom into something no one saw coming — a new song rising from ground everyone else had given up on.