Am I not in the rain?

In 2018 we launched our second Refresh Group. It was a big step for us as eight men gathered together to listen - some of them for the first time in their life.  We didn’t know any of these guys and they really didn’t know much about Seek Well either. We had such high expectations going into their first experience. Jesus showed up in a big way. But I’ll tell you, a lot went wrong.  

Let’s start with one of our guys getting in a car accident on his way to Refresh... that doesn’t sound so “refreshing” does it?  Thank God he is ok. It was quite the surprise when he arrived two hours late having been dropped off by a fire truck.

Then we had to adjust a big chunk of our schedule around a massive rain storm that came through Monday afternoon. Our feast was disrupted and we had no campfire that night. It all worked out, but not without a few “what do we do now” moments.

As the rain pounded we eventually shifted to playing corn hole and washers in the garage.  It wasn’t our plan but the guys were having fun. As I was getting beat at corn hole, I could feel my blood pressure rising.  Partly because I hate losing; partly because something bigger was going on inside me. I decided to let someone else play and I went outside and watched the rain. As I watched, I shook my head and said “really?”. I was royally ticked. We have been planning this Refresh for almost a year. We have prayed over these guys, fasted for them and have had countless hours planning this experience. In my mind I was thinking “and you can’t stop the rain for a day?”

Then, in that still small voice, Jesus  said to me, “am I not in the rain?”

Silence.   

How small my faith can be sometimes. It had only been 3 hours since the rain started and yet my perspective shifted so fast.

Did Jesus decide to leave because it started raining? Did He get up and walk away because my plans didn’t work out just right? Was His work in these guys lives dependent on a perfect Refresh experience? Absolutely not. My perspective was off.  I was so focused on what was going wrong I couldn’t see what was going right; that He was at work in the rain.

We are all experiencing a thunderstorm right now. In this moment in history we are ALL asking ourselves the same question, “really?”. After all, we have our plan for our life and when it doesn’t go just how we want we tend to question everything. 

Let me encourage you in this moment, Jesus is still in the rain, even if you can’t see it. He hasn’t left us in our circumstances. He is still working even if the world feels like it is falling apart. We just have to be quiet long enough to listen. We have to be still long enough to see through the rain.