Home » Thoughts for the Week » Have you ever just stood in the rain? (30 June)

Have you ever just stood in the rain? (30 June)

This week’s thought is written by Beth Powney, EBA Regional Minister

I remember a very hot summer a couple of years ago (hard to imagine now, I know) and we were all longing for rain and the ground was cracked and baked hard.  When that rain came, I just went and stood in the garden to feel its freshness on my face and catch that amazing smell which is released at that point.  How about you, have you ever just stood in the rain, or been drenched in an unexpected summer downpour?  At those times it is an incredibly refreshing moment.

Some of you, like me, may be using the Lectio 365 app and recently it has focussed on Elijah and his battle with prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18 and then his subsequent escape from Jezebel and how he hides in the cave, utterly exhausted.  Yesterday the focus was on 1 Kings 19:9-12:

‘And the word of the Lord came to him: ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’

¹⁰ He replied, ‘I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.’

¹¹ The Lord said, ‘Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.’

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.’

The writer of the Lectio 365 material asked the reader, which verse stands out for you and my brain immediately went to: ‘Go and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord’, only my brain removed the ‘on the mountain’ and just read ‘go and stand in the presence of the Lord’.  We are familiar with what follows and the fact that the Lord does not meet Elijah in the wind, storms and earthquake, but as a gentle whisper.  However for me is was just this ‘go and stand in the presence of the Lord’.

So often when battle weary we think and feel we need to put in more effort, try harder, pray harder, study harder, but God says to his battle weary prophet, ‘Go and stand in the presence of the Lord’.  Just come and ‘be’ in my presence.  For me this is represented by my memory of standing in the precious summer rain after a drought and the sense of refreshing that this brings both for me and the parched and sun baked earth.

How about you? How do you stand in the presence of the Lord? When will you chose to stop long enough to be drenched by his love, grace and mercy falling over you and all around you?  Doing more, trying harder will not refresh a weary spirit, only coming to the fountain of life will do that, which reminds me of Psalm 34:8 as rendered in the Passion Translation:

‘Drink deeply of the pleasures of this God. Experience for yourself the joyous mercies he gives to all who turn to hide themselves in him.’

Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord.