After the Rain
Since I live in Arizona, we get very little rain. The rain we do get, gets a lot of press. We see videos on the news of puddles and pictures of rain on car windshields. This type of rain "celebrity" has always been funny to us, since we spent much of our lives in Oregon. So the disparity between the two is significant, with Phoenix, Arizona getting around 8 inches of rain a year and where we lived in Oregon getting about 31 inches a year.
When we first moved here, my husband and I were teaching in an elementary school. I took my 5th grade class outside for recess one afternoon. The classrooms did not have windows to the outside, so when we pushed the double doors open on to the playground, many of the students exclaimed at the same time, "The clouds, look at the clouds!" There were beautiful, puffy thunderclouds filling the sky. I had to laugh, since the students I taught in Oregon would never have even noticed the clouds, since that is what they saw nine months of the year. My Oregon students might have exclaimed, "Sun, look at the sun!" if they had seen it on a winter afternoon.
All this is to say, we often view situations and people from our personal filter on life. We take our experiences, both good and bad, and overlay them on to others' lives, often forgetting that they have their own experiences, often worse or better than our own. Their lenses are not our lenses, yet we expect them to see "eye to eye" with us.
The rain brings cleansing and clearing of the air here in Arizona. After the rain, we can see the mountains more distinctly and smell fresh scents that rise from the plants after a godly dusting. The Bible tells us that, "Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, 'Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink'" (John 7:37). When we are confronted with people and situations that dry us up and threaten to dehydrate our faith, we need to look to, "Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God" (Hebrews 12:2).
We all "see" and interpret things, situations, and people differently, but with Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we can ask Him to help us "see" all our trials and events through His eyes. Once we do, He'll often pour His living water out on us, refresh us, and bring new life and new clarity to what once was a cloudy and even gritty situation.
When we first moved here, my husband and I were teaching in an elementary school. I took my 5th grade class outside for recess one afternoon. The classrooms did not have windows to the outside, so when we pushed the double doors open on to the playground, many of the students exclaimed at the same time, "The clouds, look at the clouds!" There were beautiful, puffy thunderclouds filling the sky. I had to laugh, since the students I taught in Oregon would never have even noticed the clouds, since that is what they saw nine months of the year. My Oregon students might have exclaimed, "Sun, look at the sun!" if they had seen it on a winter afternoon.
All this is to say, we often view situations and people from our personal filter on life. We take our experiences, both good and bad, and overlay them on to others' lives, often forgetting that they have their own experiences, often worse or better than our own. Their lenses are not our lenses, yet we expect them to see "eye to eye" with us.
The rain brings cleansing and clearing of the air here in Arizona. After the rain, we can see the mountains more distinctly and smell fresh scents that rise from the plants after a godly dusting. The Bible tells us that, "Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, 'Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink'" (John 7:37). When we are confronted with people and situations that dry us up and threaten to dehydrate our faith, we need to look to, "Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God" (Hebrews 12:2).
We all "see" and interpret things, situations, and people differently, but with Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we can ask Him to help us "see" all our trials and events through His eyes. Once we do, He'll often pour His living water out on us, refresh us, and bring new life and new clarity to what once was a cloudy and even gritty situation.
John 7:38-39
"Whoever believes in me [Jesus], as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them." By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.
A rose in our yard...after the rain.
Now this was awesome and funny for a desert rat like me to read. So true though.
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