Praise you LORD! for the rain last night!
I truly can't remember the last time it rained here. But, it IS wintertime and it IS west Texas, so we have seen it drier -- many times! I grew up here, the daughter of a dry-land cotton farmer. As such, weather was a constant discussion item in our home. And rain is so necessary for our existence! not only for farmers and their crops, but we all depend on rainfall, whether we all know that or not. Some see it as a nuisance, but we gotta have it!!
I suppose it's because of my farmer girl upbringing that I am such a fan of rain -- any amount and any way it is delivered -- I love it! My Daddy was that way too. I remember a conversation Daddy and I had about rain. William and I and the boys lived in the College Station area of Texas for a couple of years. College Station is 90 miles from Houston, very coastal, almost tropical -- very humid and rainy. We mowed our lush green yard in the middle of February! In shorts and t-shirt!!! A real treat for us dried out flat-landers.
Anyway, I digress -- I was on the phone talking to my Daddy during one of the many, almost daily, rain storms we were experiencing. The whole Texas Gulf coast area was caught up in a pattern of tropical depressions, disturbances and storms. We even had one full grown hurricane that season. The storms lined up that year in such a way that it would start raining on Tuesday and by Saturday, when the Aggies were playing football, the storm was really coming down. We had to invest in a bunch of rain ponchos for game days. The Aggies, by the way, won the Big XII that year!!! They do better in the rain, too. I just always think of our time in Bryan/College Station as a series of "treats" the Lord lined up for us. The constant rain was just one of many. (I'll tell you about more of those "treats" in later posts.)
So, my Daddy says "So, how does it rain there?" with a little longing in his voice. It was a pretty dry season "back home", much like what we are currently experiencing. That might seem like a strangely worded question to some I'm supposing. But to me....I knew exactly what he meant. I said "well, is just kind of cloudy and then the sky opens up and it just rains -- it just falls out of the sky, straight down." "Yeah, that's what I thought," he said with a kind of heavy sigh. And we went on with the rest of the conversation. I mean it just rained there. No big bad wind or storm warnings. No hail. Just rain -- straight down! Ahhhhhhh
Rain just has such a way of refreshing. I love it! And when we've been without measurable rainfall for as long as we have this time, I start to feel it in my skin, in my attitude, in my very being. Can you imagine how it must have felt when Elijah prayed that it NOT rain and it didn't for 3 and a half years!!!! WOW!!! Now that's a long dry spell! "Again, he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops." James 5: 18
That story, told in I Kings 17, always comes to my mind when we are experiencing long dry times. I find myself wondering "Who is praying?" AND for what? AND by whose request? The dry times Elijah prayed for and then prayed would end, had a greater purpose. The LORD desired the people's attention turned back to Him. He doesn't, then or now, tolerate our idols and false gods. The LORD will not share the glory with any other god. God Almighty is our sole source of ALL our provision! And that includes every drop of precious rain that falls.
"LORD, thank you for the rain you sent on our parched land and our parched skin and our parched being. You know all our needs and we trust you fully to provide what we truly need. So, Lord send the rain! Send your rain to our innermost parts. Refresh us with your Word. Refresh us with your rain! We give you and you alone our praise!!"
