I woke up with a start. I didn’t need to strain my ears to know what had woken me up. It was the sound of rainfall and the heavy winds accompanying it. My wife and I got up, closed all the windows, checked that the children were okay in their rooms and went back to bed.

I however could not sleep immediately. It was a Sunday morning and I wondered how I would make it to church with my family. We didn’t have a car yet and our church was about two buses away from home. “Maybe the rain would relent” I thought, as I felt myself drifting into sleep again. Something in my mind however told me, I would come back from the land of dreams to meet the rain in full swing.

I woke up for the second time and contrary to my earlier hopes, the rain was in full swing. Staying at home was a very tempting idea but I refused to give it much thought. I needed to get to church; I had to be in church! I got up and prepared for church. The decision had been made for my wife to stay at home with the children.

I stepped out into the cold rain and flooded streets. It took me a long while but I finally made it. On the face of it, nothing spectacular happened in church that would have made me desperate to be there but I felt my need to be in church satisfied even though I got to the service late.

On my way to church, I was deep in thought. In most major cities in the world like Lagos where I live, the rainfall is not usually welcome. When it falls, it is usually seen as an obstacle, something that must be endured. If people in the city have their way, they would probably propose a law forbidding rain to fall within the metropolis. The grouse against rainfall is that it gets the streets flooded and causes untold hardship to the people commuting from one pace to another.  Things are even worse off for third world cities where there is no adequate and efficient drainage systems and where massive flooding is often experienced.

These same critics of rainfall however, will be the first to complain when the climatic temperature increases. In Nigeria for instance, one common excuse of the Electric Authority  for power outages is the low level of water at its main hydro electric dam.

When I came back from church, I did a brief study on rain as a blessing from God. I began to appreciate rainfall more after realizing that in Israel, there was so much dependence on the former and latter rain – the two seasons when rain usually falls.

The first rain ensures that the plants take root and the second to ensure ripening and preparation for harvest. (Lev 26:4, Duet 11:14). It was so important for rain to fall in these seasons that God had to promise to bring rain during these periods as long as Israel would work in His ways.

There is no doubt that rain is a blessing from God. “..for He makes His sun rise on the wicked and on the good, and makes the rain fall upon the upright and the wrongdoers [alike]. (Matt 5:45b). My Pastor once tried to interprete a local Yoruba saying. He translated it by saying, “A thinker is a thanker”. This means in essence that a man who thinks deeply, is more likely to appreciate and thank God. He does not look at things on face value but looks deeply at things and finds the good in the seemingly bad situations

You may be going through a situation at the moment and it looks like the rain falling over the city. In the midst of that situation and circumstance, there is something good. The rain must fall for food to be in supply. That circumstance must come to bring forth the blessings God has purposed for your life.

Soon the rain would stop and thereafter the seed must turn to a harvest. God is bringing a harvest your way and you will be grateful that the rains fell.

 

Steve Popoola

Biblepraise Fellowship Online © 2005