Let it Rain

I stood on top of the hill and watched it all unfold. At first it was just a wall of dark clouds on the horizon in the distance, the kind that make you wonder if it's coming your way or not. Then gradually darker clouds started rolling over the tops of the distant mountains, the ones that tuck our town in the valley where it is nestled. Everything within me said to run and take cover, yet something deeper within me also said to stay and watch.

It was only a moment before the wind came. I could see it long before I could feel it. It came over the tops of the same mountains, only it was brown, and it was fast. It picked up more and more dirt and tossed it higher and higher into the air. I watched it creep into town, invading like smoke first in between the houses and huts, filling the streets and any low lying space with dust, then billowing higher until even the roofs and tops of the trees were buried in the dust cloud. It was only then that I felt it, and it wasn't like a gentle breeze that gradually gained force, but rather like a wall of wind that smacks you across the face and stings your eyes and skin with the dust it carries. It blew constantly and relentlessly, without giving a single break, and the trees bent over with the force. 

Forced to close my eyes, I figured it was better to watch from the car, so I hopped inside and watched the storm blow in from the big screen of the front windshield. Being on top of the hill was like having a front row seat in God's IMAX theater, and he was putting on a powerful show. 

After the dust comes the rain. The wind comes and stirs the dust up and then the rain comes and settles it back down again, but it also washes the dirt in all directions because the ground is hard and the rain falls fast and runs off even faster, turning the entire plain into a muddy slip 'n slide. 

I watched the rain blow sideways across the terrain, and I listened to it beat the windows as the wind coined to shake the car. Such power, such magnificence, such a display that somebody is in control of this planet. Storms like that don't come by accident; it makes me certain that somebody created it. 

Africans love rain. Every time it rains, they thank and praise God for it, for the rain is what makes their crops grow. Rain is their visual reminder of God's provision. Rain is their way of knowing that God is pleased.  

Funny how Americans in general don't like rain. It ruins their plans, it jams up traffic, it frizzes their hair and gets their shoes wet. Rain is associated with sadness and crying. A rainy day is just a bad day. 

But it's not like that in Africa. Rain makes people happy. It's a cultural thing, I guess. Or maybe it's about perspective, and maybe we have something to learn from the Africans. 

Maybe our troubles are the same way. From our perspective, it's hard and it hurts. It's feels like dust in the eyes and being bent over from the weight of the wind. We don't welcome it, we don't want it, and everything within seems to tell us to run and hide, to escape while we still can. 

But them there is that still small voice that tells us to stay. Stay and watch. Watch and see what God will do.

Perhaps God's perspective of our troubles is different. Perhaps he sees in them a marvelous display of his strength and glory. Perhaps he sees in them a rain that will make us grow, a wind that will lift the dust from our spirits. 

And so instead of trying to escape from the troublesome winds in our lives, maybe we need to stay and watch under the protection of his wings, because what he sees in the storm is good. It makes him happy and pleased to find us in the shelter of his presence and to see us wet with the water that will make us grow. 

I want to see things the way he does. I want to look across the valley and see the storm clouds roll over the tops of the mountains and head directly my way, and then I want to crawl under his wings and watch it unfold before my very eyes. I know I will end up right in the middle of it, but I will be there with him, and he will show me his glory through the storm.