It’s predawn, dark giving way to grey but the hour is late. It’s the overcast of clouds pregnant, moving in labor, about to give birth to the moisture within.
Through closed eyes and open ears the sounds of distant thunder can be heard, invisible but traceable as the sound travels rumbling across the heavens from one point to another. Now and again a dim flash of lightening, the source of that sound, strobes, half dream, half sleepy wakefulness. Body and spirit at rest and waiting for what’s to come.
The otherwise quiet is added to with the sound of the wind, beginning and rapidly progressing in strength, invisible as well, but a force as it passes across open spaces and through the density of foliage, bending trees before it bringing to mind the long hair of a woman flying in the air… swirling around stationary objects and creating a distinct music, a melody, progressing in intensity, reminiscent of the sound of rushing waters.
The temperature lowers, the sounds get louder and the first large drops of water fall on roof top, awning, grassy ground and bare.
Then the fullness is upon us. The course of the downward fall of rain drops is given a new trajectory, alter by the winds of God, and the gates in the sky release droplets of such number that everything is bathed, drenched, in a continuous “riv-eric” flow.
Pictured are the days of boyhood, running out into the warm rains of summer, being completely immersed and soaked to the bone, kicking and splashing through growing puddles, aware and fearful of the lightening but unable, lacking the desire, to leave the pleasure, the pure fun, for mere danger.
It’s pouring Father…where are the ospreys and J-birds, the squirrels… the butterflies and bees Father… all the many and varied creatures that are otherwise visible? They have completely disappeared. Maybe You scoop them all up and set them apart for a time. When the storm passes and to our eyes they have immediately returned and don’t look wet at all…You return them to the world created for them to inhabit.
The lightening passes over in full display of light and deafening sound. The darkness is illuminated for a brief nanosecond and everything that was a dark shadow before is intensely and perfectly visible in shape and color and then cast
into shadowy darkness again.
The downpour is intense. The ground cannot drink up its provision as fast and abundantly as it is being poured out… that receiving is overflowing… it runneth over.
Then it passes. The wind subsides, the flood of water diminishes and recedes. The deep throated rumblings fade in intensity and in the quiet of hushed wind and striking rain drops, the occasional lightening flashes of light are fading.
The only sounds now are those of trailing rain drops dripping for the tips of leaves splashing down onto the overflow that has not yet been absorbed into the earth.
In the wake, is a growing light, a “brightnessing” of overcast that without brightness… the brightness of a noon day sun, brings to the eye, form and color, and not just the appearance of cleanness, but accompanied with a feeling of cleanness as well. Freshness and pureness we experience in our hearts as well as see with our eyes.
For a moment, perhaps for the day, there is a feeling of good, of beauty, of wellness, of security in Your learned and remembered promises, of renewed peace and joy… most acute in these immediate moments.
“…And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord…but the Lord was not in the wind... 1 Kings 19:11 AKJV
“…And He said, I will make all My goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee…” Exodus 33:19 AKJV
“…And He said, ‘Thou canst not see my face; for there shall no man see Me…and live…” Exodus 33:20 AKJV
“…thou shalt see My back…” Exodus 33:23 AKJV
“…And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed…” Exodus 34:6 AJJV
“…And Moses made haste, and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshipped...” Exodus 34:8 AKJV
Yahweh…Jehovah God was not in this morning’s storm, its winds and sounds and downpour.
This, these, were instruments for revelation of Himself to us, a demonstration of His great power…and beauty… a glimpse of His glory we can see and not die from…that our frail frames can see, can comprehend and can be undone by…to the point of worship…looking up as it passes and see the glory and beauty it leaves behind it….
“…and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven…2Kings 2:11 AKJV
Who knows what it will look like? But one day we may be caught up into heaven clothed in a garment of wind, there to once again, be bathed, drenched in our spirit, spinning and twirling and leaping just like we did in the rain as children, just like David did before the Ark…our arms outstretched, palms up… fingertips grasping, capturing the poured out glory of God as we see Him face to face...released once and for all of all weight and burden…free, fresh , clean, pure, at peace, and joyful forever.
Thank You Father…
For Your storms…
for the peeks and glimpses You give us now, in these days … in an imperfect creation, in an imperfect condition... that reveal You to us and are a preview of a time and place yet to come when we will know always and without restraint or limits Your fullness and all the loveliness and joy and peace of existence with You.
Thank You Father.
In Yeshua’s name we pray.
Amen.
May God’s love be in us all.
Elder
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