Rain and more rain! The first weeks of summer have been some of the wettest on record. Our daughter was getting frustrated with the rain and the way in which it was conflicting with her summer plans of spending every day at the pool with the kids.
Avery, our granddaughter, had been planning her 7th birthday party for weeks. Her plans were to invite several friends from school and church, have a blow-up water slide and a giant cookie cake decorated with zebra stripes and hot pink writing. A few days prior to her party, her mom said to her, “Avery, with all the rain we’ve had, you’d better pray that it doesn’t rain on your birthday.” To which Avery confidently responded, “It’s not going to rain on my birthday.” Her mom was curious as to how she knew that it would not rain on her birthday so she asked, “How do you know it’s not going to rain on your birthday?” Avery very assuredly replied, “God wouldn’t do that to me.”
The morning of Avery’s party, I got out of bed and immediately opened the blinds. God had given her a beautiful day. It was an incredibly sunny day. The temperatures and humidity were low for this time of year.
I turned on my oven to begin the process of making a four tiered wedding cake and several additional cakes for a large wedding the following Saturday. I watched as the temperature registering on the front panel of the oven read 100 ̊. Five minutes later it read 100 ̊. As I opened the door, I realized there was absolutely no heat inside the oven. I stood there wondering what I was going to do in order to have all the numerous layers of cake baked and ready for the wedding. Avery’s words flooded my mind, “God wouldn’t do that to me.” Or would He?
I thought about Avery and wondered how her view of God would have changed if He had chosen to let it rain on her birthday, ruining all her plans. Seven years ago, if someone had described to me the rain God was about to allow in my life, I would have said, “God wouldn’t do that to me.” I had plans for the future and I trusted that God was going to go along with what I had planned. Instead, God chose rain and more rain! Mark was diagnosed with a rare degenerative disease; he went through nine months of depression, we were forced to sell our home, he was placed on permanent disability, and we moved into five different rentals in five years.
Avery had a confidence and an assurance that God certainly would not let it rain on her birthday. I wondered what her response would have been if it had rained. Perhaps, she would have responded with, “Oh well, God knows best!” Or she might have thought, “God doesn’t love me because He allowed rain on my birthday.” Maybe she would have said, “Because He allowed it to rain, He must have something better in mind.”
There are times when God works in ways we cannot possibly understand. He orchestrates our lives, in order to accomplish a work that is greater than anything we could hope or imagine. He allows circumstances, or “rain,” that does not make sense to us.
Rain, the kind God chooses to shower into our lives, is not wet drops falling from a large billowing gray cloud, but the diagnosis of a rare disease, the sell of a home, the death of a dream, the loss of what was, the redirection of a life, a new path, a great work of the heart, and a broken oven! When the rain comes, will you respond with, “Oh well, God knows best,” or will you believe that God does not love you because of what He has allowed in your life? Perhaps if you look up, you will see the Son shining through the clouds and be able to say, “Because He allowed it to rain, He has something better in mind.”
Father, just as we are grateful for rain after a severe drought, I am grateful for the rain you have showered into my life. I was unaware of just how thirsty I was, and how desperately I needed the rain to cause me to run to You. How thankful I am that you bring the rain and you know from whence it comes and what it will accomplish in our hearts and lives. Help me to always look up and see your Son, knowing he has something better in mind. Whether broken ovens or broken hearts, you rule over all. You know best!
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jer. 29:11 NIV
“… then I shall give you rains in their season, so that the land will yield its produce and the trees of the field will bear their fruit.” Leviticus 26:4
“For ground that drinks the rain which often falls on it and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God.”Hebrews 6:7 Study Bible says of this verse, “Not to go onto fruitful maturity will result in loss of reward.”