Downpour on my soul

It's raining. It's been raining. I'm not sure it's going to stop raining. Honestly, it started yesterday on my way back to Erie and it's still going strong.

Rain drives me crazy and like so many times, my mind starts turning when I'm annoyed. It's seems to me that most have a negative perception of rain. It's a nuisance, a bothersome occurrence that keeps us from enjoying ourselves. You know, like the kids in the Cat in the Hat. It was too wet outside to play.

Sometimes rain brings on a perception of depression. Movies and television shows use rain all the time when they want to portray a dark scene. In other words, rain is not supposed to be a good thing. I also relate rain to trying times. There is, of course, the first rain ever recorded in the great deluge of the world wide flood. That rain wiped out all of humanity except for Noah and his family. Talk about trying times. We have all sorts of phrases like "weathering the storm." There's that Casting Crowns song about praising God in the "storm," or praising him during the trials and tribulations of life.

I looked up rain on biblegateway.com and received a bunch of references, but other than the flood, most were about God withholding rain or sending rain during the time of a drought. Those droughts were sometimes used as punishment to a nation. But in the New Testament, most of the references seemed to be more along the lines of how rain produces life.

"Nevertheless He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good, gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.” - Acts 14:17.

"For the earth which drinks in the rain that often comes upon it, and bears herbs useful for those by whom it is cultivated, receives blessing from God." - Hebrews 6:7

"And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit." - James 5:18.

It's true, rain, as much as I dislike it, is a blessing from heaven and directly from the hand of God. It can bring destruction, but without it, our planet would be a desolate waste land.

While I often don't think of rain as being a blessing and consider it more of a hinderance, there are also struggles, trials and "hinderances" in my life (many others have suffered infinitely more than myself) and those certainly aren't blessings from God. Or are they?

Whenever I think of hard times, I think of the song "Chalice" by Phil Keaggy. In it he sings...

"And suffering restores us; burns away the empty shallowness
And softening the heart
To be broken bread and poured out wine
When it rains it pours; turns a life into a chalice;
There to nourish every soul one at a time."

He means simply this; that when trouble comes, it comes in a big way. But it is in those times that we surrender our pride and turn to God because we know only he can get us out of the rain. But that rain, while giving us trouble, brings us closer to God, builds our relationship with God, and helps us to trust God more and more by making us reliant on not ourselves but on the Almighty.

Think about how much Paul suffered but how close he was to God. In Acts 4:21-22 it says that Paul made many disciples where he preached and in the process he was "strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue the faith, and saying 'We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God."

Romans 5:3-4 tells us to "glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope."

2 Corinthians 12:10 even tells us to rejoice in our infirmities. Not wallow in self-pity. Not sit inside the house and stare out the window at the rain pouring down on our lives. No. We should rejoice!

So just as rain helps flowers, trees and animals grow strong and sustain life, the rain or trials in our walk is from a loving God, and it helps us to grow and gain life, as well. But this life, the kind that comes from a inseparable relationship with God, is eternal.