You know that little shock you feel when thunder suddenly cracks over your head? Its an exciting jolt that seems to awaken all of your senses at once. After the first loud bang, thunder seems to roll across the sky constantly in the midst of the beautiful pounding of rain covering everything around us. When I hear the thunder, or see bright bolts of lightening streak boldly across the sky, or listen to the sound of rain refusing to let up, it blows my mind that my God created this. In the Bible there are so many verses we quote and post about how loving God is and how gentle He is that we can almost forget how incredibly powerful He is. Watching and listening to hard rain like that always reminds me of His power that He can just create that so easily.
If you can't tell, I absolutely love the rain. On the morning of my high school graduation, I had absolutely no fear for rain. In order to be allowed to walk at graduation, we were required to drive to Tulsa to practice the ceremony. It was pouring so hard that entire day, and the whole drive up there was in absolute paradise watching it pour onto my windshield and and listening to the constant drum. On my way home, all of this changed in an instant.
As I was driving home on the highway, at 65 miles per hour, I hydroplaned. To my right was a drop off and to my left was a grass median with a slight hill between me and the highway that was going the opposite direction. When I hydroplaned, my car shot the right and I puled it to the left. Thus began about an eight second fight between me and the rain to keep my car on the road. I was screaming in sheer terror and wondering if this was how my life would end, before I even graduated. After eight long seconds the rain shoved me to the left and I ended up in the grass which did not slow me down at all and I tried my hardest to relax all of my muscles so nothing would be stiff when another car hit me, and watched myself speed toward the 65 mile and hour traffic. Then...I stopped. The slight hill brought my car to a stop right on the edge of the highway.
My car still had to get home, which meant I had to drive it again in the rain. Believe it or not, I was not quite as excited to drive in the rain this time. I'm now that really irritating driver that drives about fifty miles an hour in the rain. However annoying that may be, it is because that moment made a huge difference to me. It changed the way I see rain, i'm not nearly as excited when I hear the beautiful pitter patter on my window. It changed the way I behave, now I drive people crazy by driving so slowly as I grip the steering wheel in fear. It changes the advice I would give, beforehand I wouldn't have thought twice about my friends driving at a normal speed during a storm, now I would fully express how horrible of an idea that is.
Hydroplaning certainly isn't more real than Jesus. Yet the change it made in my life was so drastic and so quick. I did not have to slowly learn how to be afraid to drive in rain. It just happened because I felt what it causes. In that area of my life I changed entirely. Galatians 2:20 says "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." This does not sound like an occasional or seasonal thing, or even something you really work towards. To me, it sounds like a decision. Will we let God live in us and change every detail of our life as completely and rapidly as my approach to rain changed? What would it look like if Jesus made that huge of an impact in our lives? What if one encounter with Him caused us to truly changed the way we do life? What if we changed the way we feel about certain issues to mirror what our God says about it? What if He changed the way we talk to people? He is so much more powerful than the thunderstorms He creates, and the effects they cause. Lets let Him change our lives rapidly and effectively.
