Truth Seekers Newsletter
January 20, 2008: Showers of Blessing!
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We have been looking at the marvelous world God created for us, even before He created the first person. We have seen how God speaks to us, giving many lessons through His plants, trees, animals, sun, moon and stars. Today we look at another of God's Masterful Ways of communicating with us. God speaks through His rain, snow, hail and wind ... whether they come gently or in the form of storms.
Why Did God Invent Rain?
Genesis 2:5-6 tells us that in the beginning there was no rain. In the original Garden of Eden, water welled up from the ground at certain places and flowed across the land. Genesis 2:10 tells us that a river flowed through the Garden of Eden to water it.
One reference speculates that perhaps the garden was like a tropical rain forest with an atmosphere that protected everything and everyone. But when that bubble was broken, everything began to change. The ground changed. No longer was it a free ride with everything watered and producing. Now Adam had to make some effort to get things from the soil. While Adam was going to have to work, God did provide for Adam by giving him what he needed to do the job. Part of that provision was rain.
Tears
Could rain be the Tears of God? The rain came after man's sin. It is an interesting thought that perhaps God wept over His earth. And by the time of Noah, when sin had escalated beyond just Adam and Eve, God may have cried for a long time, 40 days and 40 nights to be exact.
We have learned that in the human body, tears serve an important function. They provide an emotional release. They serve to nurture and moisturize the eye. They also serve as a tool of cleansing away impurities. God's Tears act in the same way.
Rains as Provision; Lack of Rains as Punishment
Deuteronomy 28:12 tells us that when God's people are obedient, He will open His wonderful treasury of rain in the heavens to give fine crops every season. God shows His Wonderful Partnership again. We do something; He does something. When we sing the notes He gives us, it is a wonderful song of harmony!
But what about when God's people are not obedient? Deuteronomy 11:17 records what happens. "The anger of the Lord will be hot against you and He will shut the heavens ... there will be no rain and no harvest, and you will quickly perish from the good land the Lord has given you."
The Ultimate Cleansing of the Earth
When you think of the word, "flood", what Biblical event comes to mind? Many of us think of Noah and the great flood. Man had become so wicked by the time of Noah that the Bible tells us God regretted making man. He decided to start all over again. He chose to destroy the earth with water.
The Gift of Obedience
God chose one man and his family as the seeds of His New World. Noah is a lesson in obedience. Even though he must have looked crazy, working steadily on building the ark, he did exactly as God told him to do. Noah and his family survived. And God sealed their new beginning with a Promise.
God gave a physical sign to remind Noah and all those who would come after him that He intended to keep His Promise. God promised He would never again send a flood to destroy the earth. He put a rainbow in the sky. That rainbow is far more treasure than just a pot of gold; it is the Gold of God's Eternal Promise.
Did God Keep His Promise?
Some people would stop the story right here and say, "Wait a minute. What about all the floods, tsunamis, events like Katrina ... there have been tremendous floods." That is true. God did not say He would never again send a flood. His Promise was that He would never again destroy the earth (implied, whole earth) by the use of a flood. He has kept that Promise.
More Lessons from God through the Weather
The flood was not the last time God used weather events, such as storms, to teach lessons. Exodus 9:13-26 tells us the story of Moses and the Pharaoh. God could have eliminated the Pharaoh with one celestial breath. But He didn't. Why not?
Verse 16 tells us. God said, "I wanted to demonstrate My Power to you and to all the earth." God demonstrated that Power first by the use of hail. Have you ever been hit by hail? Does it feel like a refreshing spring rain? No! Hail definitely gets your attention and can actually hurt you if it hits you. Not only that, hail can damage. By the time the hail storm was over, Egypt lay in ruins. God had spoken!
After many other lessons, the Pharaoh finally died, covered over by the Red Sea. God's Water cleansed the earth again that day.
Acts of God
Are all storms Acts of God? Yes! Psalm 148:8 tells us that fire and hail, snow, rain, wind and weather all obey God. God is God! Storms can come about in different ways. God has put certain laws into place upon His earth from the very beginning of time. If we violate those laws, there are consequences.
Example: There is the law of gravity. If you jump off a building and fall, did God push you? No, you made a choice to ignore one of His Laws and you reaped the consequences. Man can contribute to storms by violating God's Plans.
God Himself can produce storms as a way of teaching. Can good people be negatively affected by a storm? Yes! Job was a righteous man, but his life was completely torn apart by a series of God approved storms. Job summed up how he felt in Job 30:22. "You throw me into the whirlwind and dissolve me in the storm." Have you ever felt that way?
Our Personal Storms
God gets our attentions through storms. Job 36:33 tells us we feel His Presence in the thunder. Often in a thunder storm, I stand at the window and look at the lightning, listen to the thunder and marvel at the Power of the wind and rain, knowing that God is conducting this orchestra and that no one else on all the earth can do that!
God uses storms to remind us that He is our Refuge. Storms remind us that we are not all powerful. Things happen that are bigger than we are. Our only Power is in running to the One Who is All Power! God waits to draw us closer to Him.
Any Port in a Storm?
In Psalm 55:8, David says, "I would flee to some refuge from all this storm." When we are in a storm, we just know we want relief and the world is quick to offer a variety of things that will seem to provide that relief. But we very quickly find that some storms are too big for the world's little umbrellas.
Under the Wings of the Almighty!
Psalm 32:7 tells us that God is our Hiding Place from every storm of life. Psalm 18:12 tells us what happens when we depend upon God in a storm. The Brilliance of His Presence breaks through the clouds with lightning and mighty storm of hail! Should we be afraid? No! When we are under His Wings, that hail could only be meant for the evil that comes against us!
God Speaks From the Whirlwind!
We often feel that first God should stop the storm and then He will speak to us. But often God speaks, as He did to Job. Job 38:1 tells us that the Lord answered Job from the whirlwind. God is in the storm with us and He will speak from the middle of the storm!
In a hurricane, the most peaceful place is in the eye of the storm. Many people often think the storm is over, but it isn't. There will be more wind ahead. But the eye gives us time to ponder the lessons learned in the ferocious wind we just experienced and to prepare for the winds ahead.
Reshaped by the Storm
Sometimes God uses storms to redirect us. Storms side track us and cause us to question what we believe. Storms shake everything that is loose. Sometimes we find that a storm has shaken away pride and disobedience and we see more clearly what it is that God wants us to do.
Never Alone!
Jesus promises us through John 14:18 that He will not abandon us or leave us as orphans in the storm. He promises to come to us. Matthew 7:25 reassures us that when the rains, flood and other storms come to us, we will not fall if our spiritual house is built on the Rock that is Jesus.
When the storm is over, and I see the rain falling gently to earth ... or I see the snow flakes gently tucking their blanket around the earth for its winter sleep, I smile, because I know God is speaking. Isaiah 55:10-11 lets us hear God's Whisper.
As the rain and snow come down from heaven and stay upon the ground to water the earth, and cause the grain to grow and to produce seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry, so also is My Word. I send it out and it always produces fruit. It shall accomplish all I want it to and prosper everywhere I send it!
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