Water

 

 “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, Oh God.  My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. “ Psalm 42:1-2a

As I’m writing this, I’m sitting on our porch watching a downpour.  This is not your Minnesota depressing drizzle.  This is the heavens opening and letting sheets upon sheets of water pour down.  When we lived in Niakara, we loved rain.  You could feel the power of it on our metal roof.  Sometimes it felt like we were in a tin can rushing down a waterfall. 

Here in Benin, to get to work, we take our motorcycle and drive about 20 minutes to get to work.  During dry season, all the trees on the side of the road were brown and dead-looking.  No surprise when we haven’t seen rain for months on end.  However, if it did rain, although there would be no evidence of the rain even an hour after it stopped – being soaked into the thirsty ground – our drive would look vastly different.  The trees, so used to dry season after dry season, were not dead, just covered with dust.  The rain had washed – purified – all the dirt and grime off the leaves, leaving a lush green forest on each side of us during our ride.

For some of us, we need to let the downpour of God’s love fall on us…washing away the months and months (or years and years) of sin, regret, disappointment, and rejection.  After the rain we find that we’re still alive in Him.  During all that time, He has not given up on us, we still had life in Him, but it was weighed down by the accumulation of all the other stuff.

For others, we’re more like the ground.  Parched…dry.  When the rain falls, even for hours, because we have been so dry for so long, within an hour there’s no evidence of rain at all!  We need a rainy season.  Where the rain falls on a daily basis and the streets flood, the lakes overflow, and the drains are running full of water.  When you can’t dry your clothes out on the line because of the humidity in the air…when we don’t need to go and water the farms because God is doing it for us.  This is what God means by “overflow” in Psalms 119:171, Romans 15:13, 2 Corinthians 4:15 and 1 Thessalonians 3:12.  Because we’re already full, we can overflow with praise, hope, thanksgiving, and love for others. 

Are you in a dry season right now?  Let God purify you and quench that thirst.

 

*Photos by Kali Lovejoy*