Who Brings You Rain?

N.B.: I wanted to share with you this timely post from my friend, Ty Hoad. May it be as meaningful to you as it was to me.

Like some of you, my family has been praying for rain here in Southern California for a while now.

For those of you unaware, California is in the midst of the worst drought we’ve faced in 100 years.

After months of praying, it rained Saturday night.

Twice.

And then again on Sunday morning.

Did I ever rejoice in the rain!

Anyone who can remember the last time we had measurable precipitation in August in Southern California can attest:

It doesn’t just happen.

It truly was a miraculous answer to prayer!

Standing at the end of my driveway on Saturday night in bare feet and head back letting the warm drops spill on my face, it was hard to tell my tears from the rain.

The rain was a promise from my Heavenly Father, you see.

No, I do not think this weeks’ rain will, nor was meant to, end our drought.

I believe it was meant to encourage us in the midst of it.

God’s presence is like that sometimes.

He allows us to go through the hard, cracked, challenging, dry spiritual seasons — not to be cruel, or to cause suffering and loss (though sometimes an amount of loss is necessary) — to bring us to a place to get our attention.

To bring into focus the things He wants us to see in the way He sees them.

Drought is an interesting metaphor for the human heart.

Some I see around me have yet to change their patterns of consumption of water at all even though they are aware there is very little usable water available. In similar fashion, so many friends of mine refuse to accept the Truth about God because it might mean they’d have to be honest about the quality and quantity of real living resources in their own lives…

Without God, my heart and own resources look so much like the reservoirs I see on TV with no water left in them: Dry, cracked and caked with yesterday’s residuals and nothing much to expect tomorrow.

Supposing the rains did come, I’d live with the knowledge that at the depth of my own reservoir, it does eventually come to an end having no spring or “source” to replenish it.

I’ve tried to live life on my own terms and while materially I did “okay,” without a natural spring, there wasn’t much to depend on in times of drought.

There wasn’t much to hope for past the pool I could draw from.

So, like my friends who have yet to change their water usage in the midst of this season, I would pretend not to care or trouble myself with the actual condition of my heart… And just keep on keeping on… Spraying down the walk and watering my lawn…making sure everything looked good to the passers by… and “Hoping” there would always be rain — even when it wasn’t “supposed” to fall… I find it interesting that a life without God produces the same need as a life with God: reliance upon Him to deliver what is necessary even though we don’t deserve it.

So what’s the difference?

Posture and attitude.

We can choose to believe everything is well and good, and we’re doing it in our own strength and power…

or we can choose to acknowledge Who it is that really sends the rain.

I, for one, have turned my eyes and hopes to Heaven.

Not just for the hope of ending the drought in California, but for the drought in the hearts of all humanity as well.

You?