Rain & Snow
If you have been reading this blog for a while you know that I love talking about the Word of God, and how it impacts our lives. It is not necessarily intentional it just happens because I truly believe that the Bible is our daily bread. It is something that we must rely on every day, the more I devour the Word the more I realize how necessary it is today. It is the beacon of truth that lights our path, showing where the will of God leads. It is the manna from heaven that God gave daily to the Israelites, and gives to us today. While we know the importance of the Bible, there are still days that we read and it feels like we are just not getting anything out of it. The names are confusing, the context doesn't make sense, how does this apply to my life today? The Bible actually addresses these seasons that we face and today I want to look at that picture in God's word.
As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, 11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
Isaiah 5:10-11
Isaiah is using the picture of rain and snow to describe how God's Word works in our lives. Sometimes when we read the Bible it seems like revelation just jumps off the pages. It is like he is sitting there right next to us explaining everything that He wrote in that particular passage. This is like when it rains on the earth, the ground absorbs the rain right away. It immediately begins to go to work. Those seasons are fun because it seems so easy to hear God. However, rain is also contrasted by snow in this passage. The times we read the Bible where we may not get something out of it, or that passage of scripture just doesn't seem to make sense, are like when it snows. Sometimes the Word just has to sit on your heart a while before it is able to water your heart. Sometimes for the snow to melt the season has to change. Then in the right moment, at just the appointed time that word melts into your heart and you receive what the Lord was communicating through that scripture.
When this occurs, two things happen:
God's word produces- Isaiah says that this watering by the Word will produce a budding and flourishing in our lives. Sometimes it is quick, sometimes it is slow, but His Word will always produce fruit. This is what Psalms says when it talks about the person who meditates on the Word of God day and night. That person will produce fruit in its season and that they will prosper. To truly prosper in the kingdom of God is to produce eternal fruit. Prosperity is not what we have framed it in our culture, but it is a lifestyle that is lived out of the Word of God.
God's word reproduces- God's word does not just produce fruit in our lives, it yields seed also. When a tree produces fruit it has seed in it, that fruit is made to reproduce itself. Our fruit is meant for a purpose it is meant to be planted in the lives of others around us. We have been given so great a gift, the Gospel of Truth, and our lives are called to be lived planting that Gospel everywhere we go. Jesus explained this in countless parables, like the parable of the talents (Mat 19:11-27). Paul talked about sowing and watering in reference to what he and Apollos did in the churches of Asia (1 Cor 3:6). The Word in our lives produces the fruit of God's character in which we turn and give that to others.