Rain

Perhaps I should never say this. No! Get your mind right back here. I’m not going to say anything profound. I’m not even going to say something new. Should I ever let anybody into my heart and soul this deep? Perhaps no one should know others thoughts. Well never? Could intimacy even exist in our souls, with secrecy? Occasionally I think, is anybody like this? Like me? 

My wife tells me I think too much. She’s right, I think…?

 If I think too much, my heart becomes heavy and depression sets in. It’s sad how fast I forget to pray. Yet, even in prayer a heart can weigh us down for a period. Read David and Jobs story. Read Paul’s journeys and the weight of life bearing down. They all became depressed as life rained down. Even Jesus felt depression. He felt weight of the cross in the 'future' tense. He knew His destiny, it had to be heavy. It fact it became heavy to the point of death in Gethsemane.

“  They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.”  He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” he said to them. “Stay here and keep watch.”

Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour

might pass from him. “Abba,Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”” 

Mark 14:32-36 NIV1084

What! Christians get depressed too? Contrary to myths and fairy tales that float through Christian circles, we as Christians experience the same emotions, tensions, tragedies, and traumas as anybody else. We often forget, “ it rains on the just and unjust.” That old statement isn't just talking about water falling from the sky. It includes the water cycle, but goes much deeper.

The depth of that verse we feel everyday. This is both physically and emotionally. That rain just keeps-a-rainin’. Throughout the whole of the bible, it rains on everybody. I’m not in the prove it kind of mood (we would be here all day) just read the bible for yourself.

Here I am on a tangent again. I heard Gayle Erwin, author and bible teacher call it something interesting; he called these tangents, “The rabbit trails of life.” Life would be boring without these (opinion of course). When I do this, and it's often, it drives my son nuts, sorry.

I've written a few paragraphs and said hardly anything.

Forgive me for lost thoughts and trails to nowhere. Just remember that phrase, “it rains on the just and unjust.” Then next time you have a “Why” question for our Father. Think on this, the next time injustice and travesty rules the News; think of that phrase.

As evil progresses at the speed of communication, I get frustrated. We see lost souls about the globe, too busy for God. We as communicators to stop in them in their tracks, to give out the Gospel message. Why won’t they listen? Are we just not saying it right? Or are we just not living it right?

I don’t know, but venting has lifted my spirit. Perhaps, I've made you more depressed (I do it to my wife sometimes). Yet, the reason my spirit lifted is because these verses came to me as I typed.

““Come, all you who are thirsty,

    come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
    come, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk
    without money and without cost.

² Why spend money on what is not bread,
    and your labor on what does not satisfy?

Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
    and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.
³ Give ear and come to me;
    hear me, that your soul may live.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
    my faithful love promised to David.
⁴ See, I have made him a witness to the peoples,
    a leader and commander of the peoples.
⁵ Surely you will summon nations you know not,
    and nations that do not know you will hasten to you,
because of the Lord your God,
    the Holy One of Israel,
    for he has endowed you with splendor.”

⁶ Seek the Lord while he may be found;
    call on him while he is near.

⁷ Let the wicked forsake his way
    and the evil man his thoughts.

Let him turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him,
    and to our God, for he will freely pardon.

⁸ “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.

⁹ “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.

¹⁰ As the rain and the snow
    come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
    without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
    so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,

¹¹ so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
    It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
    and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”

Isaiah 55:1-11 NIV1984