I’ve noticed that people in Perth don’t seem to run in the rain as much any more.
Here in Western Australia, and in fact right across our great country, water is a precious commodity. Our dams are at frighteningly low levels, we have to adhere to a range of water restrictions. Our farmers are battling drought and our Prime Minister has called on the nation to pray for rain.
Thankfully we’ve had a number of wet days recently in Perth.
Maybe it’s just me but I reckon over the last couple of years I’ve seen less and less people making a dash to stay dry when the rain starts. Sure, people still try to avoid the big downpours, but where people used to try to cover up or run when light rain started to fall, they seem to just continue on their way.
I’ve seen people walking casually through showers, simply enjoying the fact that it’s raining.
I guess it’s got a lot to do with realising just how precious the rain is. In the past it was an annoyance. We preferred fine conditions and rain would just muck that up, but these days we understand that we need more water, we need the clouds to drop a bit more of the wet stuff on us.
Instead of always hoping for a fine day we enjoy the fine conditions when they come but we’re also embracing the wet days.
When we start to realise that something is important, even when it might be inconvenient, we start to see it in a very different light.
I wonder how many other things in life we would embrace if we understood just how important they were. I wonder if we’d look at the difficult times of life differently if we had better understanding of how trials and struggles build character and create the person that we become.
Posted by Rodney Olsen
Technorati Tags: Rain – Trials – Drought
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Someone told me years ago that a study had been done to see if there was a difference in how wet you got if you ran compared to walked in the rain.
Apparently if you run you get 25% wetter, something to do with the angle you’re on allowing more body space to get wet.
Maybe I’m just gullible but it sounded like it made sense to me.
So true Rodney.
If there’s one thing I’ll take back to Northern Ireland, after having lived in Australia for a time, it’ll be an appreciation for rain. At home (NI), we would thank God for the lovely sunshine in our prayers, but here in SA, we thank God for the rain.
If we’d just learn to submit to the sovereignty of God in the weather, and in our circumstances of life, we’d rejoice no matter what we have to face day-by-day. My study in Philippians at the moment, and in the life of Joseph, is causing me to emphasize this over and over again.
I live in Florida where we have cycles of drought and tropical, wet weather. We are always grateful when the rain comes after the dry season.
As a side note, it is amazing how quickly the dry, barren land will turn green, and verdant after just a day or two of rainy weather. It’s amazing and makes me think of the way God can transform our own dry places.