“Elijah heard the sound of a rushing rain by faith when God spoke to him." ~ Kings 18:41
Seventeen-year-old Ellison was
having a serious case of the Monday Blues.
Her doggy Frankie had roused her about 4am; she never quite made it back
to dreamland. All too soon the sun would
rise behind heavy clouds belching rain to everything below.
She hated rainy days …
especially on Mondays. It seriously
messed up her obsession with comfort: dry clothes, coiffed curls, and crisp
potato chips.
As Frankie snuggled in, a carousel of random ideas filled
Ellison’s consciousness. After lazily
considering them, she began to wonder if certain ideas were meant to be saved. Like yesterday’s Sunday school lesson where,
after a season of drought, Elijah prayed for rain and God delivered.
Thunder roared like lions as heavy rains fell from ancient
skies. Pleasantly cool raindrops
quenched the farmers’ thirst. Birds
chirped sweetly from dripping branches. Children
splashed in muddy, dirty ponds and beautiful flowers danced merrily. Everything
seemed refreshed.
Few people look out the window on days like today and say,
"What a great day!" But that's
exactly what God's people living in the Old Testament’s desert-like places did.
Her Sunday School Teacher said that in the Bible, rain was
often used as a metaphor for blessings ‘raining’ down on us. “Perhaps there's a connection,” she
said, “between the way we respond to rain and the way we tend to respond to
blessing.”
“God blesses us in surprising ways,” the teacher had
explained, “ways that don't always seem like blessing. God sends the rain of difficulty, not because
He doesn't love us, but because He does; calling us to find deeper hope in Him.”
Further, she told the class, “God sends the rain of an
honest friend to confront us with the need for growth, because He wants to
bless us with maturity. He sends the
rain of failure, so that we’ll get our identity from Him and not from our
achievement. He sends the rain of want,
so that we’ll grow in faith and courage.”
“All of these things are
blessings of His love,” she concluded, “but we rarely see them as blessings. Actually, we’re often tempted to question
God's love.”
Ellison got up and walked to the window. Raindrops continued falling steadily from a
sky of white velvet. The rain brought a
richness to each hue. Liquid ‘goodness’
greeted the earth’s thirsty roots with a touching embrace. Colorful umbrellas would blossom all over the
city today; soon enough a honeyed sky would fetch new rainbows.
“Today’s a day for hot chocolate, good friends, and
rubber-soled shoes,” she thought. Ellison
thanked God for the rain and asked Him for clear vision to see the surprising
blessings He’ll rain down upon her because He loved her.
Father God, remind us that no one ridiculed
Noah when the floods came. They realized the old prophet knew what he was
talking about. Keep us closer to You
because sometimes faith appears stupid until it starts to rain. Amen
