I don’t own an umbrella. I live in a desert, so why would I? We don’t get a ton of rain here, except maybe in the spring and fall, seasons that I’d otherwise enjoy. This whole thing is funny, because politicians and old women around here always complain about droughts. I don’t think they get it. The point though, is that I don’t like the rain. It’s annoying. It ruins car washes and camping trips, it’s the worst when it’s on my glasses, and is generally a nuisance.
But, if we look at the Biblical perspective on rain, it seems to be a good thing. Please take these out of context verses as examples:
…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 NASB
Drip down, O heavens, from above,
And let the clouds pour down righteousness;
Let the earth open up and salvation bear fruit,
And righteousness spring up with it.
I, the Lord, have created it.
Isaiah 45:8 NASB
I will make them and the places around My hill a blessing. And I will cause showers to come down in their season; they will be showers of blessing.
Ezekiel 34:26 NASB
So, literally and figuratively, rain is a blessing. But, if I wanted to get wet, I’d take my clothes off. I’d get in the shower, or a pool somewhere. Modern technology has changed this traditional approach to an age-old phenomenon (to a point). We can live without rain- we have plumbing and irrigation (I realize that’s not entirely true, but how much do we realize this each day? Not much.)
★ ★ ★
I moved this week. Whenever this happens, I realize that I have too much stuff. I’d like to call it something different. Americans judge their blessedness on their belongings. I’m blessed. I’ve personally paid for only one piece of furniture in my room right now. The rest of it was given to me by excessively generous people *cough, family, cough* But if I’m honest, sometimes, it’s an inconvenient blessing. You have to maintain things. Some stuff needs to be dusted. We have to store belongings that we have no use for, yet refuse to let go of. And somehow, so many of us seem to want more crap. If I ever wanted to curse someone, it’d be with stuff, and they would become a hoarder, like on that wretched show on television. They’d have paths through piles of collectible porcelain dolls, Nascar paraphernalia and other random things. They’d have to follow these trails from room to room in their homes. Maybe they’d rent out a storage unit (is that uniquely American?) and pile meaningless objects there, only to have the whole thing auctioned off when they die.
I’m semi-transient or a little nomadic- it’s a bachelor thing. As a result of this lifestyle, I try to whittle my belongings down to a manageable load, because they make moving into more of a chore than it ought to be. I worry that settling down would surely be the death of me as my belongings piled up and as a tower of things finally collapsed on me and I slowly starved to death beneath them. I’m sure that Israel didn’t have a ton of crap weighing them down as they wandered the wilderness, but that wasn’t exactly a season of blessing, now was it?
Perhaps rain and household stuff aren’t the best examples (really, they aren’t), but how often have we received a blessing and only seen the burdens that accompanied it? Perspective has some fascinating effects, doesn’t it?
rain is actually something i learned to appreciate thanks to the country songs that sing about how much it’s needed for farming…i had the opportunity to get to know a farmer and we talked about the importance of rain for a while. i’m like you, and i could care less if it rained or not, but it put a new perspective of things, and i have a feeling that could have been God speaking to me int hat moment
Morgan, you’re right. So many of us live so far from an agricultural lifestyle that it doesn’t mean much to us. I know that’s been my life. But, this is about seeing the wrong side of the blessing or having the wrong perspective 🙂
We’ve had rain here the last few days. It’s been nice. My brown lawn needed it.
I’m with you on accumulating stuff. I tend to go through my house twice a year and get rid of/donate/pitch anything I haven’t used or didn’t need in a year (minus some stuff that I keep for certain reasons – like extra blankets for when people stay over, etc). It might be a bachelor thing. lol
I hope cleaning stuff out like that isn’t a bachelor thing. I don’t want a ton of crap. My house right now (the new one) HAS SO MUCH STUFF that it kind of grosses me out. But that’s my OCD side kicking in… oh well.
Good post man. It’s not uncommon for us to take the blessings and gifts from God and begin to worship them. We begin to honor the provision instead of the Provider. It is truly about perspective. I know what you mean about traveling light, I did that for a time when I was about your age. The pictures and things that tie us to others is the thing of the most value. Wish I’d have hung on to more of those things.
I also agree with you on the responsibilities that accompany blessings. I can tell you some of the things I wanted so desperately to possess, have become a battle over who is the actual owner…. Those things that we desire can come to own us… I’m slashing ties with those type of material things. In truth it really is about perspective. If I can cut them loose in my mind and give God the proper place in my life, everything else kind of takes care of itself….
Great minds think alike I’ve heard…. Maybe it really is just like minds?
I think/hope I have the God in the right place, but man alive, I struggle to see the blessing in some things. Everything looks like a burden and sometimes, I’d prefer to like like some weirdo minimalist, in a nice, clean white box of a house 🙂