Atlantic District Publications

Letters from the President - Rain, Rain Go Away

July 1, 2009 at 2:48 PM

They say there’s a drought in Seattle.  No rain for a month.  That’s no surprise to us in New York – we know what’s going on.  There’s been some kind of switching delay at a higher level, and we ARE Seattle.  As Sacred Scripture tells us, “The rain falls on the just and the unjust.”

True enough.  But when it falls on us EVERY day we start to wonder what we’ve done to deserve all these gray and lowering skies.  Judy and I were at the US Golf Open on the first day, Thursday.  It was not only a rain-out.  We had determined to follow Tiger Woods, and he was on the point of land farthest from the clubhouse when the skies opened up to their maximum.  2 ½ miles out, and 2 ½ miles back – in the mud.

The weather lets us know, underneath all the grumbling, that we are dependent, that we are creatures and not the Creator, that we don’t get to make all the decisions and we don’t get to control every aspect of our destinies or daily lives.

Most of us as Christians already know that.  But what I’m advising is that we ENJOY our creaturely natures inside the boundaries of God’s grace.  I was speaking with our “Cosmic” Witness in the Public Square awardee, Vic Nelson Sr., recently.  Vic invents sound equipment and switches that are used by NASA  in space exploration, including a vessel headed to Pluto.  He explained that we are so incredibly tiny as a planet and as creatures on it in the perspective of the universe that it would take at current speeds 800 centuries before a vessel from our planet would reach the next star.  “What is man, that Thou art mindful of him, and the son of man, that Thou visitest him?” we ask with the Psalmist.

Yet God has not only made us “a little lower than the angels” and crowned us “with honor and glory.”  God has loved us.  Loved us with an everlasting love in His Son.  Each and all of us, and, as Paul indicates, His entire creation as it waits for redemption.  The love of God is beyond the farthest corners of the universe in Christ Jesus, who was there when it all began (Colossians 1)!  Enjoy, then, your status – not as gods, but as God’s redeemed.

One of my favorite NON-starter “creeds” is “I believe for every drop of rain that falls/a flower grows,” because it makes me think strange thoughts.  How many flowers would that be?  Good grief!  My thought is that if that happened I would have such an incredible allergic reaction that I would be eternally sneezing on a planet absolutely blanketed in flowers. Just do the math.  But the rain IS our gift from God, and it DOES water the earth, and, even though we may not be able to sing with Orphan Annie “The sun will come out/tomorrow,” we have a hope that will not and cannot fail us in the love of God.  Be blessed this summer – and whoever it is out there that’s praying for rain – adjust your zip codes!