I Bless the Rains

Dave Brisbin | 4.8.18 Moving past the Resurrection and anticipating the spiritual filling of Pentecost fifty days later, is there a model for the shape our days if we’re living a spiritually aware lifestyle? What does that look like? Jesus teaches and demonstrates all through the Gospels of course, but the nation of Israel itself shows most clearly the ideal of what day to day conscious connection to God looks like. Leaving Egypt, Moses establishes a law that takes Israel out of the death and next world obsession of Egypt and places all the emphasis on immersion in this world, herenow. And perhaps more to the point, the promised land the Hebrews eventually occupy in Canaan had no major river or natural water source that would support irrigation and agriculture as Egypt had. Israel had to rely on its annual rains, the Yoreh and Malkosh, the early and latter rains that fell in fall and spring and without which there was no sustenance. You can harness the flow of a river, but not the rains. To be completely dependent on the heavens, on God in heaven, to be deeply connected and aware of the movement of wind and weather herenow, to pray humbly for provision while working hard in preparation and celebrating gratefully for the blessing of the rains captures the post-Pentecost lifestyle as well as can be.