Stop Running for Cover When It Rains

How often have you prayed for rain, only to run for cover when it comes? Sounds familiar right? You wait and wait through a long, dry spell, praying for rain to fall, and yet when it does come down in glistening drops from the sky, you run for cover? You don’t stand out in the open and enjoy the coolness and refreshing it brings?

Okay, so maybe I’m one of the minority here. Whenever it rains, I have to run out in it, if only briefly, just to experience it. And it doesn’t matter where I am. If I’ve just walked out of church and down it comes, well then, out I go. If I’ve just bought my groceries in Woolies and I find it raining outside, well then it takes me longer to get to my car. I just have to linger in it. I have to taste it. To feel it on my skin.

Now, maybe it comes from living here in Katherine, where our hot, dry climate necessitates the need to breathe it all in and get excited when the heavens open up and the clouds burst forth, filling the rivers and creeks and intoxicating the air with the smell of dry earth having been dampened by a cloudburst. (If you’ve never smelt it, then you’ll have no idea what I’m talking about, sorry)

So why am I rattling on somewhat poetically about rain? Stay with me. There is a point to all this.

Let’s get down to the spiritual application.

How often do we pray for rain, or blessing, upon our lives, our churches, our ministries etc, only to run for cover when it does rain?

The blessings start to roll in, and we run for cover. Back to our comfort zones. Back to what we’re used to. Back to our routines, or ruts.

Firstly, I think that we often pray in unbelief. Not fully trusting that God will do what we ask. We don’t really expect Him to come through. But He does. And gloriously. Souls are added to the church. People come to faith in Christ and we are left just a little overwhelmed and fearful.

All of the sudden, we grasp the fact that because of the blessing He has shown us, we now have new opportunities for ministry opened up to us. New converts need discipling. New ministries need to be started. Teaching the young Christians how to grow in their spiritual walk becomes of upmost importance. Visits need to be made. And we need to step up to the plate.

And we run for cover!

Yes, reality hits. Our leisure time is now going to be limited. Our ‘me’ time is going to decrease. We are going to need to give more, love more, share more.

We’d like it to rain on our own terms. When we’re ready for it. And we want just the right amount.

Back to my ‘real’ rain analogy. During our recent wet season, there were many times we were caught out by a heavy shower. We had freight in the yard, on the ute, out in the open and down it came! We were unprepared and had to do all we could to get everything under cover to prevent damage.

Yes, we knew, being wet season, that it would rain, and often unexpectedly, but we still found ourselves unprepared at times and frustrated. And then the wind would start to blow and everything you had put under cover would now be threatened with gale force winds and rain sending you sprinting for a tarp or something to cover it up with. The roof leaked and so we were decidedly picky as to where exactly to place certain items so as to not have them dripped on throughout the night.

You know what we wanted? We wanted the rain on our own terms. We wanted just the right amount, at precisely the right time. We wanted everything put in its place BEFORE the rain, and it would be nice if it waited until we could sit on the verandah and watch it and breathe in its coolness while we rested on an easy chair after our days labours.

Yes. Rain on our terms. Blessing on our terms. When we’re ready, God. When we have all our little programs and ministries in place and everything lined up neatly in a row.

But God doesn’t work to our schedule. He has His own calendar. He has His own timepiece. His own clock. And the timing of His blessings, His rain, is totally up to Him.

I love these verses in Isaiah that remind us that He works differently to us.

Isaiah 55:8-9 KJV - For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

God chooses when to shower His blessings down upon our lives and we need to be ready and waiting to accept them with open arms. It seems strange that we would actually see a blessing as something to be feared, but that’s exactly what we do so often when God brings things into our lives that require us to step up and serve, trusting and believing in faith that He will give us the strength to face whatever challenges He’s planning on sending. We ask Him to send the rain, and then we run for cover, not ready to face what He has for us.

This is the part where I say, “Be careful what you pray for…”

Yes, if you’re going to pray for blessing in any area of your life, be prepared to be thrown out of your comfort zone and into a raging torrent. But be comforted that God will be with you and He will give you the exact skills you need to meet the challenge without fear.

Proverbs 3:5-6 KJV - Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

Isaiah 41:10 KJV - Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.

When I went through a very difficult time in my life, I asked that God would use my time of trial to help others with the comfort I was comforted with and that He would give me opportunities to bless others and encourage others with the things I had learned. And boy did He ever? I prayed for rain, and He sent it.

Was I prepared for it? No, not really. But did I run for cover? Okay, maybe just a little. But God opened up opportunities for me I had never dreamed or even imagined myself facing. He brought people into my life I never would have gone searching for. He wanted to see if I was serious about using the lessons I had learned, for His glory.

I’m so glad that God works according to His calendar and not mine. He knows our human frailties and failings and He knows that if left up to us, we might never step out of our comfort zone, we might never start that ministry, reach that person, speak up for Him. But He, in all His wisdom, sends blessings into our lives that require action on our part. And then, He gives the strength we need to meet the challenge.

Pray for rain. Run out into it. Lift your hands and your faces up to the heavens and soak it in. Ask God to show you what He wants you to do. Where you can serve Him and how. Don’t let your blessings become burdens. Let them give you wings to fly and let God be the wind that lifts you up.

Isaiah 40:31 KJV - But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.