In Celebration of Brown Pastures

We all want green pastures. 

Green pastures are where we lay down. They’re where still waters run deep, where the Shepherd is meant to be enjoyed. 

But lately I’ve been thinking about brown fields, mostly as a metaphor for the places in our lives that feel dry and lifeless. These are the spaces we want to rush through, not linger in; the ones that make us question the nearness or goodness of God. I won’t make the claim that the brown fields of life are enjoyable, but how would it reframe things for you to consider that these can be the spaces where the Shepherd does His deepest, most meaningful work?

Embracing the Good Hard (and the Hard Good) 

A metaphor can only take us so far, so allow me to provide some context . . . 

A new year brings a new perspective. As the ball dropped on 2025, I felt mostly . . . bleh. While God is good (all the time), life can feel like living in a boxing ring. The prior year had left me black and blue, worn out from TKOs like health challenges, relational strain, and the deaths of several people I love dearly. 

Yes, God was faithful. It’s who He is, who He will always be, but I was weary. (Aren’t you grateful our moods cannot change His?) So in the earliest days of 2026, my eyes were often filled with tears. The bright hope and fresh motivation I’m accustomed to at a new beginning eluded me. 

That was hard, I kept whispering to the Lord. That was really hard. 

God’s Word invites us to trust “that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28), but time has taught me to rethink what brand of “good” to be looking for. Jesus’ life and death are proof: sometimes hard is good and sometimes good is hard.

Fallow Fields and Future Flourishing

The sheep farm where I live is surrounded by fields. In the spring and summer there is green as far as my eyes can see—signs of life everywhere. In the fall, those same fields turn harvest gold, and I sit on my porch and drink in the beauty, cradling a mug of steaming cider. It’s every bit as idyllic as it sounds.

But as I write these words, it’s winter. Everything is brown. There’s not a bud or bloom for one thousand square miles—just sticks and dirt and dry grass. No one wants to lie down in a brown field. They are eyesores we work hard all winter to ignore. 

Farmers, though, don’t call them brown fields; they call them fallow fields. And they’ll be the first to tell you that fallow is not synonymous with dead. There’s a natural process occuring. The soil of our fallen world can’t produce endlessly. Fields must rest in order to be restored before they can be reused. I’ve tilled up enough soil to be sure that under that dry grass, something is happening. Nutrients used up by last year’s harvest are being replenished. That reality has somewhere hopeful to take us. 

The book of Hosea uses this agricultural lesson to teach a spiritual principle. The prophet knew about brown fields: his marriage was rocky (to say the least), his nation was wayward and rebellious. And yet under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit he wrote, 

Sow for yourselves righteousness;
reap steadfast love;
break up your fallow ground, 
for it is the time to seek the LORD, 
that he may come and rain
righteousness upon you. (Hosea 10:12 ESV)

Here’s the hope: God can do something with your fallow ground. God wants to do something with your fallow ground. God has built you for a flourishing and fruitful life. He says as much in His Word. 

The righteous flourish like the palm tree
and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
They are planted in the house of the LORD;
they flourish in the courts of our God.
They still bear fruit in old age;
they are ever full of sap and green. (Psalm 92:12–14 ESV)

In God’s kingdom, flourishing palm trees and brown fields are not mutually exclusive. If you will let Him, God can produce something in you through each season of dryness. He will produce something through you if you keep your eyes on Him and decide to give Him all the glory. 

He’s not wasting; He’s waiting. Our Bibles give us manifold examples of people for whom fallow seasons became training ground for fruitful kingdom work. 

Oh, it won’t come about by happenstance. A brown field will stay brown without care. But if you’re looking backward at the past month, the past year, the past decade and thinking, Lord, that was hard; that was really hard,take heart! God can do more with a brown field than you could do with a dump truck of fertilizer.

I don’t know what the year ahead holds. It’s okay to hope for still waters and green pastures. But if, in His providence, the Lord allows prolonged seasons of dryness that feel like death, His Word and His character give you every reason to expect Him to use those seasons for future fruitfulness.

What can you do while you wait on Him?

Read the prophet’s words again. Look for the seeds that are your responsibility to plant, and tell the Lord you will trust Him in the brown fields as much as you do in the green ones. 

Sow for yourselves righteousness;
reap steadfast love;
break up your fallow ground, 
for it is the time to seek the LORD, 
that he may come and rain
righteousness upon you. (Hosea 10:12 ESV)