Grace Like Rain
In the midst of July Texas heat, we all know and say the same prayer. All the beauty of Spring starts to give way to the brown scorched look as the grass, flowers, and even the weeds curl toward the Earth attempting to escape the torturous heat. We count the number of 3-digit days almost so we can be proud of how many we survive!
And then God answers our prayers.
Sometimes it starts slowly, but sometimes it comes in such a fury, full of thundering claps and bolts of lightning, that it scares us. We’ve asked for relief from the heat and salvation for our lawns by way of God’s gift of revitalization. We don’t like to be teased with cooler temperatures, sun deflecting clouds, or a good morning dew. Give us the real deal – replenish us, rejuvenate us, soak us to the core, give us life again!
But it doesn’t always happen that way. Sometimes we wake up at 6:30 in the morning, step to the front door to get the morning paper and sigh a breath of relief as we see the cloud cover. The gray day surely means a break in the hellish temperatures and electric bills. And then we step out into the world only to be hit in the face with humidity so heavy it might as well have been a ton of bricks falling on our hope for relief, and we wonder – ‘it’s all here, I see the clouds, I feel the moisture in the air, where is the real stuff?’
And we endure yet another day – praying once again for God to provide.
Eventually, finally, it comes – God provides the relief we so desperately needed. It seems as if it is only a matter of moments and life springs back into our world. The grass leaps toward the sky, the flowers stretch out their blooms as if an offering of thanksgiving for new life, and we breathe in the refreshing coolness and fragrance of hope.
Our passion and thanksgiving for God’s gift is genuine. We smile at the refreshing drops on our windshields and the soggy and drenched lawns.
Then it begins to get old and our prayers change. We start to tell God that we’ve had enough rejuvenation. It starts to get impractical. The lawn grew too much – now it needs to be mowed and we can’t do that until it dries out. The commute to work gets longer as the flooded streets slow down the flow of life. And the weeds start to take over the beautiful flowers in our gardens. We’ve had enough of God’s answer to our original prayers.
I can’t imagine how amazingly patient God is with us. We fervently ask for God’s involvement in our lives – but only until it becomes impractical. We ask for God’s grace to fall down on us – to replenish us, rejuvenate us, soak us to the core, and give us life again! But when God provides it for us sometimes it scares us, sometimes it hits us like a ton of bricks, and sometimes it grows the weeds along with the flowers-and after a while, we’ve had enough and we think we’d rather brave the heat again-and God wonders – ‘which do they want? The richness of life soaked with my Grace or the desolate dryness of my absence?’
And you thought I was talking about rain!
Blessings,
Eric