Refreshing Rain for the Soul

I love the quiet patter of raindrops falling gently on the flowerbed just outside my dining room window. Such a peaceful and refreshing sound! This rain is just what the thirsty plants needed. And the lawn beyond is looking more lush and green.

God’s creation has many ways of reflecting who God is and how He relates to us. Refreshing rain is one more example. I think of how God waters the gardens of the earth. “The rain and snow come down from heaven and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish” (Isaiah 55:10). Rain has an effect wherever it falls. It’s impossible for rain to not do what it’s designed to do.

Here’s the significance: rain is like God’s word. He always sends His word out with a purpose. He tells us, “My word…will not return to Me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:11).

Just as rain nourishes plants and helps them grow, so the Word of God is purposed to strengthen us and help us grow. His Word can encourage us, teach us, train, correct and even transform us.¹  Just hearing or reading God’s Word will have an effect on a hungry heart. If we humbly accept the word planted in us, it can preserve us from spiritual danger, deliver us, and make us whole.²

As plants can’t live without water, so we can’t survive spiritually without God’s word. Many times in my daily Bible reading, I have come across a verse that’s just what I needed for that day. I didn’t go searching for it; it was right there in my path where God knew I would find it. It achieves His purpose of reminding me of who He is or what He wants me to do that day. It refreshes my soul like rain on a thirsty plant.   

¹ 2 Timothy 3:16;  ² James 1:21