Praying for Rain

To say it has rained a lot the last few weeks might be an understatement. A neighbor of mine measures the amount of rainfall and said that last week we had 7 inches in just a few days. That’s a lot water! So to title a post “praying for rain” at this particular time even feels a little strange to me. I mean, is that really a good idea?

Saturday evening, Joy and I went for a walk in our new neighborhood – dog in tow. As we stepped onto the street we saw an incredible double rainbow. Even as color blind as I am, I had no problem seeing the two distinct bands. It was vibrant and seemed to be standing as a sentinel over the city. As I looked at it, I remembered God’s promise to Noah and the gift of this beautiful memorial. Without a word, it seemed to shout God’s faithfulness and God’s pleasure in pure beauty!

As I we returned home after our walk, I started to think about that rainbow and about what it said of our God. We know what a rainbow is – the bending of light around water vapor. We can create a rainbow with a garden hose and a shaft of light from the sun. It would be easy with our understanding of the natural world to dismiss God’s gift of the rainbow. However, the natural world alone can’t answers questions of why we have such beauty?

As I let myself get lost in the regal nature of God’s rainbow, I started to think about all that was going on around me. In the past month, I was ordained and moved my family, saying goodbye to old friends and meeting a whole town full of new ones. Some of the moments have felt like downpours of rain. Some of the downpours have been refreshing and full of God’s shalom. Other showers have been stressful and we’ve rushed to stop it from leaking inside to do greater damage. Yet, the rainbow is still with me.

This morning I quite literally stumbled on a passage from Zechariah. The prophet is writing to a people in exile. There is a longing for what was and a discontent with what currently is. The rains had come upon them and wiped them out – rain of judgment from the results of a great rebellion and sin. Now the prophet was speaking over them a reminder of rainbows – where there was drought and dryness and destruction from the tumult of their rebellion, God was going to rain down on them. He tells them to prepare for the rain – prepare for life to return – prepare for the dry ground to once again yield bounty.

As I read these words to a people living thousands of years ago, I wondered if God might be leading us to read these words for today as well? We live in a time when we long for something we believe to be gone – taken away. There is a discontentment, an unnatural uneasiness with what is happening to both our private little worlds as well as the greater, not so private, world around us. Like many others, I long for renewal and rebirth. I long to see the Church let loosed on the world in a way that changes small and large communities alike. I wonder if Zechariah could be a window into the longing of God for the same thing?

One more thing, as I read Zechariah, I notice that he doesn’t say we’re going back. He’s not promising life like it used to be. He’s yearning for a new day.The people will come home, but home will be new. The people won’t return to old traditions that are set, but will be new “tools and instruments” for a new work that will be done. They’ll work “as One” and they’ll be “proud” to see what happens around them. Oh, may that be what is happening to the church!

I invite you to read Zechariah – remember who it was written to first, and then read it for us today. May God prepare us for the spring rain – the rain that invites the life giving harvest. May God’s Spirit revive us and use us in a great rebuilding. May we find ourselves “God-Strong” and ready for God’s offer of homecoming.

Grace and Peace

Zechariah 10
1 Pray to God for rain—it’s time for the spring rain—to God, the rainmaker,
Spring thunderstorm maker, maker of grain and barley.

2-3 “Store-bought gods babble gibberish. Religious experts spout rubbish. They pontificate hot air. Their prescriptions are nothing but smoke. And so the people wander like lost sheep, poor lost sheep without a shepherd. I’m furious with the so-called shepherds. They’re worse than billy goats, and I’ll treat them like goats.”

3-5 God-of-the-Angel-Armies will step in and take care of his flock, the people of Judah. He’ll revive their spirits, make them proud to be on God’s side.
God will use them in his work of rebuilding, use them as foundations and pillars, Use them as tools and instruments, use them to oversee his work.
They’ll be a workforce to be proud of, working as one, their heads held high, striding through swamps and mud, Courageous and vigorous because God is with them, undeterred by the world’s thugs.

6-12 “I’ll put muscle in the people of Judah; I’ll save the people of Joseph.
I know their pain and will make them good as new. They’ll get a fresh start, as if nothing had ever happened. And why? Because I am their very own God, I’ll do what needs to be done for them. The people of Ephraim will be famous, their lives brimming with joy. Their children will get in on it, too—oh, let them feel blessed by God! I’ll whistle and they’ll all come running. I’ve set them free—oh, how they’ll flourish!
Even though I scattered them to the far corners of earth, they’ll remember me in the faraway places. They’ll keep the story alive in their children, and they will come back. I’ll bring them back from the Egyptian west and round them up from the Assyrian east. I’ll bring them back to sweet Gilead, back to leafy Lebanon. Every square foot of land will be marked by homecoming. They’ll sail through troubled seas, brush aside brash ocean waves. Roaring rivers will turn to a trickle. Gaudy Assyria will be stripped bare, bully Egypt exposed as a fraud. But my people—oh, I’ll make them strong, God-strong! and they’ll live my way.”

God says so!