rain is a course or a blessing in our life
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Answer:
don’t know about you, but the last many days of almost constant rain has been a bit of a downer for me. It’s disrupted my running schedule, made it troublesome to go out, and made my days rather dreary and depressing. What a wet start to 2021!
Not only that, our clothes have not been able to dry properly, there’s ponding around the housing estate, walking on the wet ground is a bit dicey, and I’m sure the flash floods in some parts of Singapore have made it a pain for many drivers.
And so I’ve been grumbling about the rain, wishing it would go away.
The people of the Bible, however, would probably have given me the biggest chiding for my complaints. Drought was one of the biggest enemies of agriculture, and often experienced in the Middle East. For them, rain signified life.
Psalm 147:7–8, for example, sings praises to God as the source of rain:
Sing to the Lord with grateful praise;
make music to our God on the harp.
He covers the sky with clouds;
he supplies the earth with rain
and makes grass grow on the hills.
And Jeremiah 14:22, Deuteronomy 28:12, Zechariah 10:1, along with many other verses, point to the unique and awesome power of God to send rain on the earth. In contrast, the lack of rain was often linked to punishment (Deuteronomy 11:17, for example), which was understandable—no rain meant drought, a disaster for crops and people’s livelihoods.
These verses were a timely reminder for me to thank and praise God for the rain.
After all, the rain has cooled the days, made our Garden City green, and filled our reservoirs with life-giving water. While too much rain can of course be a problem, life would be quite a challenge without the rain. I remember a period of drought some years back, when our reservoirs were in danger of drying up, putting one of our critical sources of water at risk.
You might say I’m trying to see the half-full glass rather than the half-empty. Indeed, critics of Christianity often accuse believers of merely being naively optimistic or “positive-minded”.
But I’d like to humbly counter that we are not. We don’t thank God for flooding, droughts, and earthquakes. We understand that God in His sovereign sometimes allows bad things to happen, and we do pray for deliverance and protection.
On the other hand, we learn to see God’s blessings as they truly are, and to thank Him for them.
As James 1:17 reminds us:
Every good and perfect gift
is from above, coming down
from the Father of the heavenly lights.
Too much rain can certainly be a problem. But I am reminded from Scripture to thank God for the rain and for the life it gives. As we pray for safety in our going out and coming in (and perhaps, for some sun), may we also praise Him for taking care of our every need and sending life upon the earth. —Leslie Koh