Let it Rain!

sidebar: I seem to be posting a lot with audio-visual effects. If you can play this, please do. It makes a nice accompaniment to the post. If you really want the full effect of the blog today, sing along.

I know first-hand the need for rain. We have been in exceptional drought conditions for over a year now in South Carolina. Silly as it sounds, I had to watch my sweet little plants wither up to nothing because we felt the need to conserve so we could do things like brush our teeth and clothes. I remember watching the red clay earth dry up and crack open last summer...then, when we had a 10-minute flash shower after months of nearly nothing, I remember running outside and doing a rain-jig on the front lawn (this is not a metaphor...I literally was doing a jig! The Tall One didn't know whether to laugh or commit me.). I remember another day that some threatening clouds came overhead, looking as if they might release the needed water onto our thirsty ground. I sang this song at the top of my lungs as I stood in my doorway, hopeful and expecting.

And my soul has been singing this song for months, years, maybe my whole life. And the Lord is faithful to answer the cry. And recently, I think, He has loaded the rain clouds with His truth and grace and power. But I wasn't expecting to get such a flood. There's nothing worse sometimes than being caught in a rainstorm unprepared...you just have to resign yourself to complete drenching. Typically, you resist by trying to find something just to cover your head...an overhang...a newspaper...you try to protect your cell phone...etc. But even if you're not expecting it and it seems a pain at first, you give in. Let the mighty truths of God come crashing to earth, splashing all around you. The big ideas of His grace falling all around, soaking you from stem to stern. You know that it will wash off your make-up and ruin your hair...but that's quite the point. Instead of hiding from the rain of God, we should run out into it, embracing all the possibilities that it brings for growth and its life-giving power...it will heal the dry cracks in our soul...we focus on little more than the rain itself...washing away the stilted air and filth that has built up in the drought. And the beautiful thing for a crier like me...no one even notices your tears in the rain! And then, after the rain...abundance!

Isaiah 30:23-26 (The Message)

God will provide rain for the seeds you sow. The grain that grows will be abundant. Your cattle will range far and wide. Oblivious to war and earthquake, the oxen and donkeys you use for hauling and plowing will be fed well near running brooks that flow freely from mountains and hills. Better yet, on the Day God heals his people of the wounds and bruises from the time of punishment, moonlight will flare into sunlight, and sunlight, like a whole week of sunshine at once, will flood the land.

LET IT RAIN!!!!!!!!