Rain.
Rain, rain, rain.
It rains a lot in England. It doesn’t pour. There’s no thunder or lightning. But there is perpetual, steady, bone-chilling-rain! I know this because I’ve walked through it a few times now. One particularl walk occrued last week on my way back to the flat, from a bible study I joined in a church downtown. I had made it to Desmond Tu Tu House relatively dry, but the walk back was a different story. It’s like the old Yorkshire saying, “Wow that's a crap-load of rain!" Ok, maybe there's no such saying... But if the Victorians didn't have personal slaves to carry daintily embroidered umbrellas over their heads, they would have gotten soaked by a crap ton of rain. Anyway, I got stuck in this rain storm; the kind which adds 10llbs to your jeans and makes your mascara run down your face. The only thing that kept me moving was I had my headphones on underneath my rain jacket. I had it set on random so I wouldn't have to take my ipod out in the rain. As I walked, alone in the streets of Bradford, randomly it played a song by Brie Stoner called "Rain." I love this song, primarily because it was written for Rob Bell's first NOOMA video called "Rain." In the video you can hear it in the background of a scene where he and his son are actually taking a walk through a rain storm. As I listened to the first few melancholy strokes of David Vandervelde's electric guitar, I remembered "Rain." Here I was, in a rainstorm, soundtrack playing.... I felt like God was trying to tell me something - which is unusual, because more often then not I sense His silence.
"It always rains, doesn't it? (Rob Bell, NOOMA)"
Rob points out a time where Jesus talks about a man who builds his house on sand, yet another builds his house on rock. The story goes that when the rains come the one built on rock stands, while the other built on sand gets washed away. It's clear Jesus is saying "when the rain comes," not "if." Trouble will come, we will be disappointed or disillusioned at some point.
(watch.)
God reminded me that He has the final word about my life, and that word is redeemed. This is the bigger picture, the clear sky beyond the storm. God asked me to start living like I know I'm taken care of.
