It Is Raining

In Texas for the past few months it has been raining. Oh I don't mean the little thundershowers we used to get in Houston everyday, at 2PM, for 22 minutes, which ratcheted the humidity from 95% to 100%. I mean the clouds settling in for days and the rain just comes down. When the sun finally peeks out, it is like walking out of a movie theater from an afternoon matinee. You can't squench your eyes tight enough.
We have definitely had our share of rain.

But this is not the rain I speak of. For months my bride and I have been in deep, intense prayer for each of our children. It is one of those moments where each one had situations in their lives that preoccupied our minds and drove us to our knees in prayer. There were days where I walked around and pleaded with God to resolve this situation or that. Now I know where the caricature of an old man puttering around in his life..muttering. He is praying, constantly, incessantly, asking for some resolution, some small answer to his life's questions over which he is powerless. The rain that I speak of is when God decides to answer the prayers.

I don't know the ins and outs of God's wisdom. He says that our ways are not His ways, that our thoughts are not His thoughts. So I know that there may never be a full understanding of what He does and when and how and why. Here is what I do know. Sometimes He answers all our prayers at once. It is like He keeps placing answers in a big bucket, then at a time of His choosing, he just dumps it out on our lives. Drenching us from head to foot in His blessings. This tends to leave us stunned and in tears, speechless and overwhelmed. At least it does me.

So the other day, in the least likely place I can imagine, He decided to answer. I was sitting in my rent car, having just completed a rather contentious conference call with a customer, when one of my kids called and told me God's answer to almost two years of constant prayer. This on the heels of answering a month of agonizing prayer for our new grandson, and following 20 years of prayer for our oldest. AS I gazed at Camel Rock formation in Northern New Mexico, my eyes blurred and my throat constricted, and my faith regenerated. It rained blessings on a sometimes stubborn, hard to deal with servant in the middle of no where. And so I responded in the only true masculine way I could..I cried, deep, grateful, overwhelmed tears. He rains blessings, I rain tears.

Now the sun is out. The blessings continue to flow, the spiritual earth around me is vibrant again. The spring rains of God's blessings has revitalized the spiritual landscape. God is good..all the time..God is good.

Godspeed. Enjoy the rain, it cools and refreshes the spirit.
Don