Rain

It's been raining all week. We've had torrential downpours, thunder and lightning, soft misty drizzles and everything in between. The sky has been overcast and gloomy without a trace of sunshine.

And I'm here in the dry, safe comfort of my home, listening to the steady beat of raindrops on the roof, remembering all those days in Colombia during rainy season. There's nothing like the sound of rain on a thatch roof.

I feel like I'm wrapped in a gray cocoon, secure, quiet, waiting. . .

The hill behind my house has burst forth with shades of green. After months of dry, brown, lifelessness, the landscape has been transformed. Almost overnight, the jungle is reclaiming its own once again.

There has been little going on in the externals. I've found myself pushing against God's limitations out of a sense of duty and obligation. Surely I should be doing something! I can't just wait here, I'm wasting time!

After calmly waiting till I get through with my internal strivings and restless activities, and finally sit in silence and stillness, the Lord begins to speak. It's always so beautiful when He does that.

These things that are happening outside my door -- this quenching of a long thirst, this renewed life -- are vivid pictures of what God is doing in my soul. All He asks is that I open myself up to receive. He is the one who transforms and gives life. He is the one who satisfies. He is the one who begins and finishes.

So I sit and wait, letting the rain of His love pour into me, down into the deepest places inside my heart, making me come alive.

"As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is My word that goes out from My mouth: It will not return to Me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it." Isaiah 55:10, 11