The Reason For Rain

Be glad, O people of Zion, rejoice in the LORD your God, for he has given you the autumn rains in righteousness. He sends you abundant showers, both autumn and spring rains, as before.
Joel 2:23 (NIV)

It has been raining here almost all day everyday for over a week. I love a rainy day, but days? No! After not seeing the sun and only gray skies, it can really start affecting my mood. We had peeks of sun yesterday–enough to allow my son to play his baseball game–but the sky is crying again this morning.

Sometimes life is like that–really long stretches of rain with no sun. But rain can be a good thing. Without rain, there is no harvest. But sometimes that harvest seems a long time in coming.

I mowed the grass yesterday in the short window of time that I had, knowing that rain was predicted for today and several of the days to follow. I could not believe how beautiful our yard was. The air smelled so fresh and clean. I had missed the effects of the downpour over the last week.

Do you and I need to take another look, sweet friend, at what the rain is producing in our lives? We may be passing through one of the most difficult seasons of our lives, when it seems that the sun is never going to shine brilliantly again. A wonderful blog friend of mine has just lost her husband of almost twelve years. She has been left with two young boys to raise. Her world is full of rain right now. She cannot see the aching beauty that the rain is producing in her that her readers are privileged to wonder at as she pours out her broken heart.

The rain falls on everyone. Everyone. Are we going to let the rain become a flood that sweeps us away? Or are we looking expectantly to the harvest that it is going to produce for Christ’s glory? I believe the choice is ours.

Jesus, You rule the rain. And it must end when You say so and not a moment later. If You have seen fit to send an extended period of the clouds covering the sun in our souls, You know best. And, as difficult and unfair as this season may seem to us, You know what You are doing. Encourage us today by showing us where the growth, painful though it may be, is happening.