Overflow

Joel 2:32; " for he hath given you the former rain moderately, and he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month. And the floors shall be full of wheat, and the fats shall overflow with wine and oil." 

Today my prayer is, “Lord, rain on us!” We need the rain of the Holy Ghost in our lives like never before. During a good rain, vegetation is nourished, animals are nourished, the grass gets greener; rain refreshes the land. Rain causes things to grow and be fruitful. We as well need to be nourished and refreshed. We need God to rain on us, to make us fruitful for His kingdom. 

There comes a time in every person’s life when they experience a drought of some type.    

• It may be the drought of health when it seems like there is no end in sight to your physical problems.    
• It may be the drought of finances when it seems like the bills are coming in faster than the money to pay them.         
• It may be the drought of your occupation because you have lost the enjoyment of doing what you do for a living.  
• There may be a drought in your marriage because you're staying together "for the sake of the children" and you have lost your "first love" for one another. 

But of all the droughts I can think of, probably the worst is a spiritual drought.  We have all had them. You pray but you feel like your prayers don’t leave the ceiling in your house. You read your Bible but it is like reading Greek and Hebrew, and worse yet, it puts you to sleep; and you go to church and get absolutely nothing out of it.    

Sometimes the pickings in our spiritual bean patch are pretty slim too! Lord, we need some rain.

We need the rain, both the former (early) rain before the difficult growing season and the latter day (fall) rain to bring plants to the harvest season. But how do we get the rain?

When we get saved the Holy Spirit starts to work in us. The heavens become new to us. I liken this to the former early rain. It's all new! Talking to God, hearing from God, having life change because of God, the first experiences with the Holy Spirit....all things that are new to us. All early rain.

Then we start to grow with the Lord. In Israel between the two rains comes the dry arid hot season. The time when plants are tested and have to grow deep roots in the soil to survive. If they don't get deep roots, this middle season will kill them. And that is the same with you and I when we get saved. God tutors us for a while, then He steps back and watches us grow and struggle and do things on our own. God wants us, in this middle season, to become strong and to learn through His leading. He wants us to stand with Him through life events....But God will not make us dependents and He certainly won't become an enabler. He wants us to stand on our own, making the choice to invite Him into our life situations. During this time we are growing our roots deep with the Lord's encouragement.  

All this is preparing us to go into the latter day rain. For our article today, we'll call the latter day rain  the season when God communes with us on a daily, personal basis and we are being prepared to go on and be with Him eternally. His rain, the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, takes us into a mature relationship with Him. We can walk with Him right out of this place into eternity. To me the latter day rain is the best rain, because here we have come to love the Lord. We are walking with the Lord, we've learned to trust the Lord, we see the Lord bless and influence us and we've seen Him prove He is capable of sustaining us. In this season of latter day rain -  He is so real to us.

Can you say, "Give me that latter day rain, Lord"?