We Need The Rain
Wednesday it rained.
A lot of the time, when we’re really excited about going somewhere or doing something, we’re equipped to say, “Rain or shine, I’m going to be there.” Wednesday night, I had Bible study, and they sent out a mass message saying, “We’re not going to let the rain stop us from getting in the Word.”
And immediately, I started thinking. Why is it that we understand how to press through the rain in our natural lives, but when the Lord reigns over our lives and allows rain to fall, we run for cover? We retreat. We ask Him to make it stop. We expect our lives with God to look like sunny days, and when the rain comes, our immediate prayer becomes, “Lord, stop the rain.”
But what if the rain is not interrupting what God is doing? What if the rain is part of what God is doing?
“For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.” — Ecclesiastes 3:1 NLT
If there is a season for everything, then every season cannot be sunshine. Some seasons require rain and rain does something that sunshine cannot do. Rain saturates. Rain penetrates dry ground and reaches beneath the surface. It supplies moisture to things that have been depleted. It gives dry roots something to draw from. It creates a reserve so that when the sun does come out and the heat intensifies, what has been planted is not trying to survive that heat from a place of dryness.
Sometimes we’re asking God for sunshine while He knows we need saturation. Because too much sun on something that has not received enough water can scorch what we were asking to see grow.
“For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud… so shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void.” — Isaiah 55:10–11 NKJV
The rain is doing something.
That made me think about how differently we respond to rain depending on what we believe is waiting for us on the other side of it. If there’s an event we really want to attend, we press through the rain. If there’s somewhere we really want to go, we press through the rain. If there’s somebody we really want to see, we press through the rain.
We grab an umbrella. We put on a jacket. We drive slower. We adjust how we get there, but we still go. We don’t necessarily interpret the rain as a sign that we should turn around.
So why, in our spiritual lives, do we treat rain like an indication that something has gone wrong? Why do we assume that because the season became uncomfortable, God must need to change the weather?
Maybe instead of constantly asking God to stop the rain, we need to ask Him what the rain is producing. Because rain does more than water. Rain cleanses. Rain softens. Rain nourishes. Rain exposes.
Enough rain can cause things that were buried beneath the surface to become visible. Soil shifts. Things that were covered can become uncovered. What could not be seen before the storm can suddenly be sitting right there in plain sight.
So sometimes the rain is not only watering what God wants to grow. Sometimes the rain is revealing what God wants you to see. Rain doesn’t just wash things away. Rain can bring things up.
And I think that’s why we have to be careful about calling every difficult season something we need God to deliver us from. Some rain needs to be walked through. Some rain needs to be received. Some rain needs to finish what it came to do.
But one experience does not negate the other.
We thank God for the rain, and we thank God for the sunshine. We rejoice when the thing we prayed for happens exactly as we hoped, but if we believe He is Lord when the forecast looks favorable, then what happens when He allows the unexpected? What happens when He allows the pivot?
Job asked a piercing question in the middle of his own unexpected circumstances:
“Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” — Job 2:10 NKJV
Can we rejoice there too?
Because sometimes it is the unexpected that gives us language for the testimony. It is the pivot that allows us to look back and say:
“If it had not been the LORD who was on our side…” — Psalm 124:1 NKJV
You don’t get that testimony because everything went according to plan. You get that testimony because something happened that showed you just how much you needed God to be on your side.
We already know how to say “rain or shine” when something matters enough to us. Maybe we need that same resolve with God.
Rain or shine, I’m still going. Rain or shine, I’m still seeking Him. Rain or shine, I’m still praying. Rain or shine, I’m still obeying. Rain or shine, I’m still showing up.
Because the presence of rain does not mean the absence of God.
The rain and the sunshine do not compete with one another. One experience does not negate the other. Both have a purpose. Both can produce something. Both can give us a reason to rejoice.
And when the sun eventually comes out, I don’t want to discover that I rejected the very water I needed to sustain what God is about to expose to the light.
So no, I’m not going to run for cover every time it rains.
Rain or shine, I have a reason to thank God.
The forecast changed but God didn’t.
