“What
is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed,
or the
place where the east winds are scattered over the earth?
Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain, and a path for the thunderstorm,
Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain, and a path for the thunderstorm,
to water
a land where no man lives, a desert with no one in it,
to satisfy a desolate wasteland and make it sprout with grass?
Does the rain have a father? Who fathers the drops of dew?”
to satisfy a desolate wasteland and make it sprout with grass?
Does the rain have a father? Who fathers the drops of dew?”
(Job
38:24-28)
Same storm, downtown. By L. Anderson. |
I set out to get caught in the rain tonight. In truth, the Lord took me on an adventure. Just as the sun was setting.
I had
run up to the little lighthouse and was coming back in failing
light. A west wind which spoke of storm was rising up; falling leaves already
turning for fall raced from their dusky heights. The Greenway dampened in the
warm, wet air. My heart thrilled.
I
watched enthralled as the wind whipped Hudson waves into the breakwaters,
hypnotized as those boiling stony-faced thunderheads rolled in. The sky above the
Jersey coast sparkled with distant lightning, each bolt a bold new stroke by the master of creation. The thousand orange eyes of the
George Washington Bridge kept guard with anticipation. The near horizon gleamed
again and I picked up speed. Now it was a race of the best kind, when losing is winning.
A flock
of Canada geese bobbled on the water just off shore near the overhang I had nearly reached when the first raindrops anointed my head. Then,
suspended in dark showers on the pedestrian bridge over Metro North. Then, the
long climb of 155th to the tune of God’s Boléro: a steady percussion of rain and the sense of something big
building, slowly, savory. Then,
Downpour. A roaring applause of pavement meeting sky.
Downpour. A roaring applause of pavement meeting sky.
And I
am washed by rain poured over me by the gracious hand of my Lord and King; He has assigned me my
portion and my cup. He reminds me I am clean, and more—He satisfies my heart’s
longing for adventure. And so I sit here listening to another Boléro and the thunder breaking and
write this rain song to the Lord.
“Lord,
you have assigned me my portion and my cup;
you
have made my lot secure.
The
boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
surely
I have a delightful inheritance.”
(Psalm 16:5-6)