there's something about the rain.

I've been thinking about rain a lot the past two days...mainly because it has been pouring buckets and dropping like bottle caps. I have found myself cursing the rain every time I spent the extra few minutes in front of the mirror straightening my hair and then walking outside only to let the humidity of the mist change my style. I cringe thinking I can't take the kids out on the playground at school, knowing I will have to deal with finding something to do with them inside. And having to slow down my driving is like ultimate torture, especially since I plan my travel time with perfect conditions in mind always. I think that I am not alone, and as much as I like to preach of God's power, I find that secretly, I only see rain as an inconvenience.

Here are my thoughts...

Rain=God's Mercy.

Rain, like God's mercy pours down on our lives. Rain exposes dirt and washes it away. After the rain, all things have been made clean. God does the same thing. He extends his mercy so that our sin, which so evidently builds, can be washed away. We can be made clean.

Here's the thing...
We resist God's cleansing power. We like being dirty. We see our sin and we either,
1. like it too much to release our grasp on it,
or
2. wish to sit in the comfort of despair.

When God reigns down on our lives, he is constantly changing us and making us more perfect, more like his son. In doing so, he release us from the things we wish to hold on to, and turns our eyes onto himself. We don't trust the Lord that he is better than our idols. And we definitely love playing the card of despair, finding comfort in turning inward and away from the Lord. We find comfort in doing our own cleansing in our own time.
Just like the rain, we hate going out in it. We are uncomfortable, and becoming clean is a hard, inconvienent process. But the rain is unavoidable, and God's mercy is an undeserved, sovereign reign on our lives.

I feel like I have been going through a season of rain. But I can't be made clean without walking outside into it first.


And just like coming out of the rain, I will not come out of this looking the same way I did when I left.