Let it Rain!

If “April showers bring May flowers” is really true, then this year we should have an abundance of beauty. It has rained, at least where I live, every day so far in April, with more rain in the forecast. April rains begin the annual process of renewal and growth. Rains wash nutrients deeper into the soil. April also brings warmer temperatures and more hours of sun. All of this combines to trigger new growth and regrowth in our ecosystem. Days and days of rain also bring a muddy mess in the not yet seeded yards of the homes being build next to us.

However, even as “April showers” bring new growth, new life, and sometimes lots of mud, to the outdoor world, many of us, maybe you, feel dry and parched. Maybe you look out your window and while the ground outside is saturated from all the rain, inside, deep down within you, in your soul, you feel anything but saturated. The world in which we live, one that is spinning faster and faster and dangerously out of control, has a way of sucking the life out of us, sucking us dry. Not only is the “world” a mess, but for most of us, every day is a grind, an exhausting grind, one that wears us down to the bone.

There are also times when we feel dry in our intimacy with Jesus. Psalm 42:1-2 utters words that sometimes seem very distant from what we are experiencing – “As the deer pants for flowing streams, so pants for soul for you, O God. My sou thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before the living God?” The image of a heart set aflame and a soul nourished by the living God maybe described you in the past, but today, that seems like a distant memory, a very different experience from what you experience today.

Do you feel dry and parched?

Let me share a verse that I find so encouraging to me in my moments of dryness. First, let me put it into context. The people (Israel) have wandered far from God and now they are urging one another to return to God; for they have confidence that he who punished their disobedience will also heal them and restore them. Let’s look at Hosea 6:1-2 – “Come, let us return to the LORD; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him.”

With that in mind, now here is that verse – “Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth” (v.3).

If you are a Seinfeld fan, then you know the show popularized the phrase “yada yada yada,” which in that context meant something along the lines of, “Enough, already, get to the point.” But, did you know, the word “yada” is a Hebrew word found in Bible, with a very different meaning than Seinfeld’s usage. In the Old Testament it is used in a number of contexts, all of which mean some variation of “to know and to know intimately.” For example, in Genesis 4:1, we read “Adam knew (yada) Eve, and she became pregnant.” In today’s verse (6:3), the phrase “to know (yada) the LORD” references not just a casual “knowing of” God, but rather, knowing God in a very personal and very intimate way.

So, here is what I see in that verse – If you press on and press in to know (yada) God with every fiber of your being, then He will respond to your persistence, your obedience, and come to you like the rains, those spring showers that turn the barrenness and dryness that is winter into the beauty, the new life, that is spring.  

Let it rain!

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