I sat down to read my daily devotional, Streams in the Desert, and I couldn’t get past the last line: “The fruitful life seeks rain as well as sunshine.”
I had to read that again. Seeks rain?! As in, looks for it? Wants it? Puts itself in a position to be rained upon?
It makes sense, and of course I’ve heard adages about flowers and plants needing rain as well as sunshine, but seeking rain? That’s what got me.
I guess we tend to associate God’s presence with sunshine and His absence as rain. We can see Him, feel Him, soak Him up in the sunny seasons, but we struggle to see Him, feel Him, or soak Him up in the rainy seasons. While the warm sunshine soaks into our souls and warms our hearts, the cool rain just rolls down our faces and soaks into our metaphorical clothes instead, leaving us chilled and anxious for change.
But we forget we’re plants.
We forget rain gives us life.
We forget life brings fruit.
So yes, we need - and must seek - the rain if we want to truly live and bear fruit.
I wrestled for a while with what it meant to seek the rain because I couldn’t get over the connotation that it meant to seek hard things or bad times. But over the course of several weeks, the Holy Spirit showed me that seeking the rain really means to be a good steward of opportunities that will prompt and nourish growth in my life.
This new perspective has helped me to approach and process some recent “rain storms” or situations that have popped up in my life. Situations that, had they happened two or three years ago, would've triggered a lot of anxiety for me and would have shaken my faith for a while.
Yet this time around, I realized that these situations that felt like rain storms could actually be viewed as rain showers. They felt stormy when they first popped up - like big, scary, challenging things that could blow me off course, but in reality, they weren’t storms at all. They were nourishing showers, opportunities to surrender, to abide, to put my roots down deeper into His love and peace, and to practice saying, “I’ll walk through this if You want me to, Lord, because I know You’re with me.”
And as I’ve done those things, He’s nourished and strengthened my roots while also pruning away a few “shoots” that were draining my time and energy.
I’m choosing to believe all of these opportunities - all of these unexpected rain showers - are a part of His preparation process for me and that this preparation process is for His glory and for my ultimate good.
Or, as Paul wrote to the Christians living in Rome:
“And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son… And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory.”
-Romans 8:28-30 (NLT)
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Hi! I'm Abigail, your real-talk Christian life coach and faith mentor. I believe we're on this earth for a reason, and I LOVE helping people realize and live that truth so that they can reach their God-given potential in all areas of life.
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