Last Saturday I sat in my backyard to pray. No agenda, no phone. Just me, God, and a quiet fall afternoon in Northwest Arkansas.
My eyes kept landing on the tree in the yard. After three hot, dry months with almost no rain, it had already dropped nearly every leaf. In September. The ground underneath was covered.
But a handful of leaves were still hanging on. When the afternoon sun hit them and the breeze moved through, they glimmered like small lights on bare branches.
I asked a simple question: What makes those few leaves hold on when everything around them has fallen?
The answer took me straight to the men I work with every week, and straight to my own heart.
WHAT THE TREE WAS ACTUALLY DOING
When a tree goes through a long drought, it doesn’t just lose its leaves. It lets them go on purpose. Every leaf loses water through tiny pores all day long, and in a dry season the tree can’t afford that. So it seals off leaves at the stem and drops them early.
It’s survival mode.
The leaves still glimmering up there aren’t the stubborn ones. They’re the connected ones, still getting enough water through the branch to stay alive.
A tree can survive a drought that way. But it can’t thrive that way. It isn’t growing or producing. It’s enduring. And the only thing that brings it back to full life is rain, something it cannot make for itself.
MEN IN A DRY SEASON
I’ve coached a lot of men, and I’ve been this man. A drought in a man’s life looks like pressure at work, a marriage gone quiet, money that’s tight, or waking up at 45 and realizing you don’t have one friend you’d call at 2 a.m.
And what do most of us do? Exactly what that tree did. We start dropping leaves.
We skip the men’s group. We stop returning texts. We miss church “just this once.” We stop telling our wife what’s really going on. We call it discipline. We call it grinding.
It’s survival mode. And the tragedy is that the very things we drop are the things that would carry the water to us.
I know this from the inside. There was a season when my identity was wrapped up in my career, specifically in a title I wanted and couldn’t seem to reach. It shaped my days and my moods. I was in the room with my family, but I wasn’t really there. I thought I was pruning my life down to what mattered. In reality, I was cutting off the people who loved me and holding on to the one thing that was drying me out.
That’s what a drought does. It flips everything upside down. You protect what’s killing you and let go of what would save you.
The turn came when I stopped letting that title define me. I had to learn to actually like myself, apart from what I did or what I was called. And I had to build a real, intimate relationship with Christ, where my worth came from Him and not from a business card.
WHY WE WON’T ASK
When I ask men why they don’t reach out, the answers usually come down to four things:
- Pride. We learned that a real man handles it alone.
- Fear of being a burden. It sounds noble. It’s a lie that keeps us isolated.
- Performance-based identity. If your worth is being the guy who has it together, admitting you don’t feels like losing yourself.
- No one showed us how. Many of us watched our fathers carry everything alone.
Every one of those feels like protection. Every one of them cuts off your water supply.
THE TREE PLANTED BY THE WATER
Scripture talks about trees for a reason. Jeremiah 17:7–8 describes the man who trusts in the Lord as a tree planted by the water, sending its roots out by the stream. It doesn’t fear when heat comes. Its leaves stay green, even in the year of drought.
Notice it doesn’t promise there won’t be a drought. It promises that roots by the water won’t wither in one.
Jesus said it plainly in John 15:5: “I am the vine; you are the branches.” A branch doesn’t produce by trying harder. It produces by staying connected.
And God often sends the rain through people. Galatians 6:2 tells us to carry each other’s burdens. If you’re waiting for God to fix it but won’t let anyone near you, you may be turning away the very rain He’s sending.
Here’s the difference between you and that tree in my yard. A tree can’t ask for rain. You can.
HOW TO BECOME A LEAF THAT HOLDS ON
- Name the drought. Say it out loud, to God first and then to one person: “I’m in a dry season.”
- Stop dropping leaves. Look at what you’ve cut off in the last three months. Pick one and go back this week.
- Ask one man for help. Not a vague “pray for me.” One man, one specific ask, one day on the calendar.
- Put your roots by the water. Five minutes in Scripture. One honest sentence of prayer. Church, even when you don’t feel like it.
- Look for the bare trees around you. Once you’ve been through a drought, you’ll notice other men in theirs. Be the rain.
THE GLIMMER ISN’T YOURS
I sat in that backyard a long time watching those last leaves catch the light. And I realized the glimmer wasn’t coming from the leaves. It was coming from the sun. They just stayed where the light could reach them.
You don’t have to have it all together. You just have to stay where God can reach you.
YOUR CHALLENGE THIS WEEK: Walk outside and look at a tree. Ask yourself honestly: What have I dropped to survive? Who do I need to ask for help? Then make the call. Send the text. Walk back into the room.
Real strength isn’t carrying it all alone. Real strength is being honest enough to say, “I’m dry. I need help.”
WATCH / LISTEN
- Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/IDlbfu0gEZg
- Listen to the True Man Podcast: truemanpodcast.com
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mike Van Pelt (MVP) is the Founder of American Family Renaissance and the CEO and Founder of True Man Life Coaching. A men’s mentor, speaker, author, and host of the True Man Podcast, he helps Christian men reclaim their God-given identity, break isolation, and lead strong families with faith and conviction. Build the Man. Strengthen the Family. Restore the Nation.