Appreciating Rain

Now that my garden is in I find myself paying a lot more attention to rain. Outside the gardening season I’m indifferent to it. But once spring arrived it became a focus. At first, rain was a concern because I needed it to get my newly planted seeds to germinate. Now it’s important to help my plants grow and bear fruit. The result is that I pay a lot of attention to weather forecasts, considering whether and when it will rain and how much rain is expected. I am also much more appreciative of rain when it comes; in fact, I almost savor it.

It strikes me that we should have the same focus on God’s interventions into our lives, things like His promptings and blessings and the insights He gives us. Like rain, they don’t happen every day, but they are beneficial when they do. They germinate new areas of productivity. They are essential to growing and sustaining fruitfulness where He’s already planted us. Without them we become dry and stagnant, and eventually whither. This analogy it hardly original; it is presented in multiple passages of scripture. See Deuteronomy 32:1-2; Psalm 72:6; Isaiah 45:5-8 and 55:10-11; Hosea 6:3; James 5:7-8. See also Psalms 63:1 and 143:6-8.

The bottom line is that we should eagerly look for those interventions and appreciate them when they occur.