As I sit here in our office in our home, I look out at what can only be described as a downpour.
For many of you, experiencing the rain is no big deal; I know my friends in the Pacific Northwest get plenty of it!
But for those of us in the southwest, and specifically in San Diego where my family & I reside, it can be something of a novelty. So much in fact that we often pray about having it rain, because we can go literally months without it, and unfortunately in the past have experienced years between rains.
But like most weather, it’s something we comment on during the course of our days, ie., “It’s so hot,” OR “I cannot wait for it to get warmer,” OR “If we could only see some sunshine today,” OR “Man, I just washed my car!”…you get the idea.
But getting back to the rain, why is it something we overlook, when it is something so amazing??
I used the term “downpour” earlier. Which literally means to pour down. And when you look at it that way, isn’t that something we should all be hoping and praying for??
A literal downpour from Heaven?!!
If we are to get that, if we are to actually make specific plans to receive, shouldn’t we all be looking expectantly to the skies, instead of turning our heads away or complaining about water spots on our cars?
This downpour is exactly what I experience when I sit down to write. Through some very strange times & circumstances, which I will not burden anyone with, I was placed in a position where I started to write.
And as I began to more and more consistently write, I found that much like the rain from above, the words come.
But they do not come all the time, but do come when I have an expectant heart that is free from all other distractions (ie. the news).
When I do try and force it to come, I have two distinct results. One, nothing happens, and I sit there real fidgety and anxious and nervous, and eventually get up frustrated with myself. Or two, I make the words appear, and bang away on my keyboard, telling myself that I am accomplishing something. But when I walk away from it, thinking I’m “finished”, and come back to it later, I realize everything I wrote, although it looked good at the time, is in actuality garbage, and that’s where it goes.
So what I am trying to impart to everyone is this.
Regardless of what you do or where you do it, what is your heart and mindset going into it?
Is it expectant, and something you hope & pray for with intentionality and deliberateness?
Do you know you are going to experience success before you start?
Or is it a some half-hearted wish, like “Gee, it would be nice if it rained today, but I guess I will be okay because I have sprinklers.”?
With the rain, Noah was told what to do and his obedience sealed the deal for he and his family, as well as all of the beasts and birds.
Noah did not necessarily want the rain to come, but believed it would. And with that belief, coupled with his obedience, made plans believing in the success that would come his way, based on the promise from God.
And when the rains came, only he was prepared.
As you go into each day, both during this strangest of times as well as what the days will look like when we come out of them, are you prepared?
Are you ready for the rains to come, wash clean what has occurred in the past, and have the lands burst forth with fruit?
Or are you making yourself more isolated than you have to, cutting yourself off from any kind of seed and growth, letting the rains come down on fear-hardened land?
I know for us we are looking forward with anticipation to the words and fruit that come out of not only the rain I am looking at currently, but the rain around all of us that most choose not to see.
Which leaves one question.
What are you looking for and forward to in life?
Is it done expectantly and with preparation, or are you just giving it idle thought, like most do with any kind of weather?
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