Pray for Rain

It has been raining for 5 days straight now, the ground is saturated, the youth football teams uniforms, cleats, socks, helmets carry the field with them in muddy form. There is something about rain that cleanses, renews, and washes our souls it seems. I often have walked in the middle of a rain storm and talked with God, or talked out loud to myself because it was just me and the rain, and the rain wouldn’t talk back to me, would simply agree and continue to fall. I think it is vital to the human soul to withstand the elements, live through them, walk in them, experience them, survive them. There seems to be strength and growth in experience individually when you walk through the elements of weather and you meet them head on where they are. For this reason I have never carried an umbrella or taken dry shelter from one. I want to be out in it, live in it, experience it, feel it, I want it to build the armor of my soul thicker so that I will be up for withstanding future storms.

Being from North Dakota offers a distinct advantage as a human being to me. In that state you experience the extremes of heat, cold, rain, wind…after living there, you can live and thrive anywhere. People think of the north as the coldest place in the United States. They believe that we wear gloves and jackets year around, but they have never experienced the 100 degree week, with 98% humidity, or they are not aware that North Dakota pre ice age was once a rainforest. All they here about are the -30 degree winter days with 50 below wind chills and snow piled as high as your roof. That is apart of the experience as well but just a small part. The fact is when you live there, you drive right through the elements, you work in them, play in them, embrace them. In short you survive them, and feel stronger in the human condition because of it. There is a sense of accomplishment after deer hunting in 30 below zero and sitting around a campfire and talking about the day. What isn’t said but is felt is that, “ We are strong, we are resilient, we can withstand anything.” I miss those days, that cold, that heat, that wind that makes the wheat fields dance across the praire. There I am strong, there I am uplifted, there I am free to run into the eye of storms and come out on the other side unscathed and better for it.

The Steady Current of Life

I am sitting riverside on a cold crisp day. The sun is out, the traffic passes by the bridges home for the weekend, and the water flows.

When I look out at the river I notice something that strikes me as profound I guess you might say. With the current there are logs, trash, birds, other objects that drift. Looking out I can see them for a bit, a few moments, but then they are carried downstream out of sight. It strikes me, that is life, that is the destination of past choices, and decisions made good or bad. They all flow away out of sight, and the new clear water comes with its own elements of choice and chance. Could have trash, could be clear, still will flow, and continue to move to a yesterday that will never be today, or tomorrow.

Guess it is refreshing to know that with time and the current of life we can be free to see a clearer view and a new chance at significance free from the trash and debris of the past. Because if we let the past define us instead of describe us, we forfeit the wonderful chance that is today, and the tomorrows of the rest of our lives.

See the Effects

I awoke this morning standing on the deck to a crisp breeze that was blowing in tree country. Looking at the tops of the trees, and hearing the wind that moved them something hit me. We can only see the effects of the wind, but we can't see the wind. We can hear the power, we can see the result, but we cant physically see the wind itself.

Standing there like I have so many times before, I started to think of other things and objects I have seen the wind move in my life. Wheat fields that connect by section lines on the North Dakota country side...dead tree branches creeking in the middle of a -10 below day as I stalked deer in Montana...white caps that become a force on a lake and crash into the shore with nothing visible pushing them, but the force is there behind them driving them.

I am reminded as I see the winds effects in the tops of these trees that the wind is a lot like God, and faith. We cannot see Him or faith, but we can see the effects of Him and our faith if we choose to take the time to look. I have often believed that there are no coincidences in life, that like so many people using the trite phrase " Everything happens for a reason," Godly coincidences can be all around us and meet us at our point of need if we look for them. Once we see them, it is then our choice to believe that the effects are real and embrace the unseen touch that is reaching down to us to tell us, " It is I," look and you will see that I can become visible in your life, and you can feel the effects of my leading if you make the choice to believe.

There is an empty feeling sometimes when we struggle with daily life, and we fail to see the coincidences where an unseen God is working. It is my belief that if you are seeking answers and there are signs that flash in front of you in daily life that beam brightly with coincidental truth and direction...God has done his job. Now the choice is yours, step out in faith, or don't, choose to believe, or don't, follow the effects of Godly coincidence and trust in the unseen adventure of faith he has for you...or don't.

When we base our decisions on ourselves, on our feelings, on our circumstance, we reject the only power that although unseen holds the answers. In short God has shown us, now its up to us, his job is completed, do we believe and follow, or trust in ourselves like we have so many times before only to see nothing and feel the same.

Look for the effects of the unseen, scan your daily life for Godly coincidental answers, you may find that the unseen will reveal the lighted path and lead you on the road where you were predestined to go. The same force that moves the tops of these trees can move you and me...if we allow. It's a yes...or no, but His job has been completed, we should expect nothing more.