The soft sound of a light morning rain dancing on the roof above me is so lovely. The earth is parched and we have been praying for rain. Now comes the roll of thunder. An early morning thunderstorm is a rare thing but it is a welcome one. 

I can practically hear the earth sighing in relief. It has been waiting long for this refreshment. It’s been more than thirty days since the last rain and the nearest forest fire is a mere ten miles away…hungrily bearing down.

But this rain will change things. It is not a passing thing and in its steady presence, the beautiful grey wet morning is a declining answer to the flames.

The prolonged waiting for rain has had an affect. Not only has the grass on the surrounding hills become crunchy, brown and vulnerable but the wildflowers that were exploding in Van Goghesque colors have vanished. We had been exulting over their beauty and then a moment later, they were gone; their splashes of color receding back into the monochromatic earth.

And we searched the sky with worried eyes praying for the rain to come.

It became the goodbye phrase in town. “Goodbye. Pray for rain!”

Perhaps that at least was a good thing. Because many, so many were praying for rain and not just here but all over the States. It has been a dry year. A dangerous year. Fires breaking records and engulfing homes and land and heartbreakingly even some lives. So we pray.

And now it is raining. The danger for the present is passed.

What are you praying for? Where are you parched?

Do you remember a prior season when your soul or your life was crunchy and vulnerable and you asked for intervention and you waited for relief and finally, unexpectedly even, it came?

It will come again. But I don’t know when. And I don’t know how deeply all of the waiting will affect the landscape of your life, your very soul or mine. But I do know that in the waiting and the praying and the dryness, God has not taken his eyes off of you. The One who is the Living Water refuses to leave us parched though He does allow us to thirst. May the thirsting hone us to come to more clarity of what we actually are thirsting for.

Friends, do not give up. Though waiting is h a r d and it is sometimes painful work; there is fruit in the labor.

Because the answer will come and it will come completely in Jesus. He is the Answer. He is the One we need. In downpours and droughts. In dry seasons and deluges. Hear it? There now. Thunder is rumbling in the distance.