Rain

“I can’t wait to see what is going to grow as a result of all this rain.”

It’s raining.  It feels like it has been raining for weeks.  And it’s not only raining, there has been lighting strikes, hail, and all kinds of other issues related to so much rain in a short period of time.  For us in South Texas, rain is as infrequent as it is violent and overwhelming when it does come.  Frankly, I am ready for it to stop.

And the rain doesn’t seem to just be a meteorological event.  

It rains.  In our lives.  All the time.

At the end of the day it is not the “circumstance,” but the “perspective” that dictates our reality.  

Attitude is a choice.

I was taught that I was supposed to be joyful when I encountered various trials.  That I was supposed to operate with this sense of peace despite my circumstance.  I was pretty good at looking back and finding the good in most things that happened a long time ago… silver linings and all that… but I had a hard time finding joy or peace in the middle of the trial.  And some of that stuff from my past couldn’t possibly have had any good that came as a result.  Right?

But learning to focus on what might come as a result of the rain, instead of focusing on the rain itself, has been a real game changer.  I can’t say I always approach the rain that way, but when I do, it opens up a whole new arena of possibility and perspective.  Maybe more than anything else, it dramatically changes my attitude.

At our LifePlan retreats, we have people work their way back through their life story.  We capture both the good (which gives us incredible insight into the best life forward) and the bad (what have we learned along the way and how have we grown and changed as a result).  Like a child touching a hot stove, we’ve hopefully learned to not do some things again (and we likely carry some sort of scar to make sure we are reminded).

Re-filtering the most challenging circumstances of your life through a redemptive filter might be one of the most freeing things you will ever experience.  If you can look beyond the struggle to the redemptive perspective that is there, you go from victim to victor in almost every situation.  I can learn to not lament the rain, but actually get out there, splash around in it, and begin reaching forward to what lies just beyond all that water.

At a recent LifePlan retreat, a very thoughtful man told me he couldn’t possibly see any redemptive perspective on the tragedy of his father’s death as a young boy.  What could be more settling or disorienting than that?  But that man is one of the most present and intentional fathers that I know.  Out of that tragedy, he shaped his life to be the antithesis of not having a father who was present in his.

Something he felt victimized by his entire life, is being beautifully redeemed in the life he is living.  Nothing changed in that story except his perspective.  

I pray that we all have the courage and temerity of spirit to look beyond the rain.  May the promised redemption not be something we hope for later on in the way up yonder, but part of our everyday reality.

“I can’t wait to see what is going to grow as a result of all this rain.”

• How is it raining in your life right now?
• How does it make you feel?
• Do you have the courage to do something about it?