Have you ever heard anyone say "I love the rain" or "I love it when it rains?" I have. I have even said it myself. And truthfully what I mean is I love it when it rains a gentle rain. A soft warm summer rain that you can go outside and dance in.
But have you ever really noticed that the times that it rains like that, especially here in sunny Arizona, is far and few between. We cherish the rain storms when we get to experience them like that.
Mostly though that is not how it rains.
Usually if it rains the storm clouds rise. They turn gray then black. The wind starts to pick up. The leaves on the trees start to shake and shimmer. Gently at first and then furiously as the storm picks up. Debris and dirt start flying. Things start to topple over. There is a chill in the air. A storm is coming.
We know we need the rain. Without it nothing would grow. Nothing!!!
The plants need it. The animals need it. People need it. It is a vicious cycle.
When these storms come, sometimes they are more destructive than at other times. But always there is a change of some sort.
We recently had a major storm hit the east coast of our awesome country. People have been devastated by it. This storm changed things. No ones lives there will ever be the same. Anyone who comes through storms like this are never the same again. They are changed forever. Some of them will rebuild right where they stood and some will move to a safer place. Some will never rebuild they will just move away. They will never want to be in a place where such utter destruction can touch them again.
When I was a little girl in West Texas we were having a drought. I was brought up in a Bible believing, faith walking, Spirit driven church. We were taught at a young age that if you prayed and in faith believed that you could ask God and it would be done. It was my cousin Marva who was four or five, my sister Tena who was four and myself, I was five. Every day we would have prayer meeting either on the front porch or the back porch in the afternoon. We were prayer warriors. One day after one of our prayer meetings we went out to our old tree that was in the front yard and we were swinging. We had dirt for a yard. Typical for West Texas. But we also had a little flower bed up by our front door. The flowers were drooping and dying. We weren't allowed to water them because like I said we were in a drought. Well short story long, we got to talking about how sad it was that our beautiful flowers were wilting and dying. It made three little girls very sad. I do not remember which one of us came up with the bright idea so since I am telling the story I am going to say it was me, so I decided the best thing that we should do for the situation was to pray for it to rain. Now I must tell you that the skies were already dark, we were already in store for a storm, but being that we were only four and five years old and had not come to realize the signs of the weather, we had no way of knowing that. So three little girls took hands and we started praying. We prayed and prayed and in faith we believed that God would send the rain. Now imagine our surprise as the first raindrops started falling to the ground. We were not shocked that it was raining. We knew that God answered prayers. We were so excited as the torrent of rain started pouring out of the heavens that we could not contain ourselves. We had a testimony. We ran as fast as our little legs could carry us and went straight inside and told everyone that God had answered our prayers. We were believers. It rained and it rained and it rained and before long it hailed and it hailed and it hailed. The beautiful flowers that we knew were going to thrive because of our prayers were beat to death by the hailstorm. Now you might have thought that the rain turning into a hailstorm would have given our faith a soaking but you would be wrong. Actually it had the opposite affect. Because we knew that it had rained because of our praying we just decided that we had prayed too hard. Next time we prayed we were going to be more precise with our words.
Now I have told that story throughout my lifetime and I can always see us girls standing barefoot out in the West Texas dirt holding hands and believing for a miracle of rain. Today, the reason I am writing this little story out I realize that as much as we say "We love the rain" I wonder do we really?
Have you ever really noticed the destruction that rain does? It stings you if you are out in it. It washes away the topsoil, the debris off of the ground. With the rain comes the wind that blows trees over, blows things around. Nothing is ever the same. Rain changes things.
Just like in our lives rain changes things.
So many times we tell the Lord, "send down your rain." Are we really sure that we want that? Are you spiritually ready for rain in your life?
You see rain never comes that there isn't a storm. It might be a summer rain, but even then the clouds are never as bright as on a normal day. But the storms of life that bring change, the ones that we can all relate to are the ones that we mostly get in our lives.
You know, most of us don't want to go through the storms in life. It is never fun, we want the rain but we don't want the storm. I am going to tell you something, you can't have one without the other.
You see it is through the storms of life, when everything seems the darkest, when we feel that God has forsaken us, that is when the rains come. That is when the growth comes. That is when we learn how to lean on God. That is when we learn how to listen for His still small voice. He said He would never leave us nor forsake us. He is the peace giver. He calms the storm in our hearts even though the storms may be raging around us.
The winds of the storm are there to blow things out of our lives that God wants us to get rid of. He is the God that changes us. He sends the rains, the storms, to grow us into the Christian men and women that He wants us to be. He breaks things out of our lives and tries to bend us to His will and then He pours out rain on us to grow us spiritually.
And sometimes, but sadly not always, we learn from the storms and the rain and we do grow. But most of the time, we either go back and build in the same place that God just tried to move us from. We start to dig around in the debris that He shook loose from us and we pick it back up and start building on it. Sometimes we move far far away from the place, we go and build some place else in the hopes that where we are going we will never have to face storms like that in our lives ever again. We abandon everything, we lose hope. But then there are the few of us that dare say "Lord, if this is where you are moving me this is where I am going to be planted. When you see fit to move me again, or allow another storm in my life, then I will be still and know that You and You alone are God. I will listen for Your still small voice."
So, I ask you, are you ready to ask God to pour out His rain in your life? Yes it is refreshing. There is nothing like rain to refresh you, change you, wash you or move you. But are you ready for it?
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