When it Rains it Pours

Why does the rain fall on the just and the unjust alike?  One would think that because you live a faithful life you'd be omitted from all hard times.  I mean, life is full of winding turns, but we've all thought, "I don't deserve this."  You make plans and you attempt to follow through on them, but life comes at you fast and ultimately God determines the ultimate outcome.

Especially for His followers.  Which seems ironic to us. We live in a time of doctrine that teaches us that we are to be prosperous and if you are a 'true believer' then life should be a life of nice cars, extravagant houses and comfortable nest eggs.

Comfortability is  never and was never what Jesus offered when He said "come follow me." On the contrary, He promised that life will have its fair share of troubles. And trouble is what I have found. Just try to dedicate yourself wholeheartedly and see if your life remains comfortable. I had a comfortable life and then I read Isaiah 6.


  In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple.  Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another:
       "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;
       the whole earth is full of his glory."
  At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
  "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty."
  Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar.  With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."
  Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?"
  And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"


One day I was praying in my nice comfortable two story, three bedroom home in Nashville, TN that God had truly blessed me and Jess with. I was pacing back and forth in my room praying when this verse came to mind. "Who shall I send? And who will go for us?"


This verse echoed in my mind and I prayed out loud "Here I am. Send me!" From that moment my comfortable life ceased to exist. I have found that the closer I draw to God the more I repel the people that used to call me friend. Not only that, but I have found that persecution has occurred the more open I am about the One I love. And I have found that this hardship mainly comes from people inside the church. Those that have lived longer than myself and have developed their own form of religion to supersede their original relationship with their Father. What terrifies me is that I am only one hardened heart away from becoming the same. 


What I find however is that it is the rain that pours down at times that brings me back to a place of brokenness before Him. Sometimes the harder the downpour the harder my heart has become or even worse the more self sufficient I have allowed myself to be. When I am content with my own sufficiency then I am salt that has lost its saltiness. I am no longer good for anything, because I have said in my heart that I am sufficient for my own needs. 


The trials and tribulations however, drive me into His presence as I have no more of myself to rely on. When the storm comes through I am undone. And all that is left is me with saline eyes and a nearness of my heavenly Father showing me His unmerited love. Everything else is broken and ripped apart when the storm blows through.