A Good Rain...

"Listen, O heavens, and I will speak; hear, O earth, the words of my mouth. Let my teaching fall like rain and my words descend like dew, like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on tender plants." Deuteronomy 32:1-2

   Any number of my neighbors drove by in cars, rode by on bikes, or passed by on foot that evening I was out in the front yard. I waved to everyone I made eye contact with but probably missed some. I was otherwise occupied. I was pulling weeds from the lawn. I was doing it right: pulling them up by their roots. There I was, stooped over the lawn plucking weeds from the grass. I was using a tool, basically a long metal spike with a curved handled, but my efforts were not made easier and effective because of any man-made device. There was something more going on. You could say it was just below the surface.

   It had rained earlier that day, and the ground was still soaked from the downpour. It was the kind of rain that soaks in, and stays around. It was the kind of rain our yards needed, but more importantly for the task I was undertaking, it was the kind of rain that loosened the earth and allowed me to easily pluck weeds with roots and all. It was a good rain.

   Is this a translatable principle for our own lives?  If a good rain has the power to loosened the soil in order for weeds to be easily pulled, are there events or circumstances in our lives that can also loosen our souls for the good?  Don't we know that over time our inner-being has a tendency to harden? We get jaded to surprises, we get dulled to grace, and even resent those moments when God is working to change us for the better.  I wonder if there is an equivalent good rain for our souls that can help us go about the spade-work needed to root out the evil that finds corners in which to hide.  I am thinking about jealousy, animosity, gossip, arrogance, lust, laziness.  What items would you add to the list?  What weeds have taken root in your life that need to be addressed?  I know I have mine own, and have been working in the past three months to address some of them.  I've even enlisted the help of others in the work.

   The high temperatures and stifling humidity outside will keep most of us from the hard work of pulling weeds in the coming months in our yards, but what is stopping us from working on our hearts? May God send a good rain, a conversation with a friends, a passage from Scripture, or a moment in your day, that makes the hard work of living an abundant life a little easier.  Grace and Peace to you.