Receiving Rain

“It is a Spiritual rain that this song is singing about,” Cynthia, one of our ward translators, said to me.

Every Sunday, we gather in one of the hospital wards for church.  Patients, medical staff, translators, and anyone from the ship who wants to attend can come.  The ward was clearing out now after church, but the singing continued on:  

“It is raining, all around me....”

I have a plant back at home.  I left it with my mom when I left for Africa last fall.  It was a smaller plant, with cactus-like qualities.  Cactus-like in the sense of not needing much watering or tending to.  The perfect plant for me... I had kept it alive for two years already.  I was gone for about four months in total when I came back home and back to a house plant I hardly recognized.  Its thick round leaves were plump and green.  The plant overall was taller, which I found near miraculous since I don't think it had changed in height the entire two years that I had cared for it.  And here, just a few months had gone by, and it looked so... different.  So healthy.  So green.  

Clearly the plant did nothing different to itself in those few months.  Except receive the “rain” that was showered upon it (courtesy of mom and a watering can).  It took in what was poured out upon it. The result?  More life.  Fuller life.  Health.  Growth. 

When Cynthia made a point to tell me this song was about a Spiritual rain, I couldn't help but appreciate the picture that it gave me.  I thought of my little plant.  And I thought of my heart.  My plant received what was given to it, and it grew.  I sense a pouring out from the Lord right now... here in Liberia... in the heart of rainy season.  A Spiritual rain.

The way I see it, there is a lot of sowing, a lot of reaping, and a lot of roots in the soil of our hearts. 

What will we plant?

What will we uproot?  

And maybe, most importantly ... will we receive the rain?

It is raining

all around me

I can feel it

It's a lot of rain

I asked Jesus to send us more rain

Until we are filled

Until we are filled 

With a lot of rain

“For the soil which has drunk the rain that repeatedly falls upon it and produces vegetation useful to those for whose benefit it is cultivated and partakes of a blessing from God.  But if [that same soil] persistently bears thorns and thistles, it is considered worthless and near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned.”  Hebrews 6:7-8