Listening to the Falling Rain • Devotional

Let my teaching fall like rain and my words descend like dew, like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on tender plants. Deuteronomy 32:2

LISTENING TO THE FALLING RAIN

Is it possible to pause in the middle of our heavy-laden and pain-filled prayers to listen? Consider how you might listen – without effort – to the falling rain.

What if our prayers could be heard as responses from God Himself?

This passage from Deuteronomy seems to suggest that God wants to let His teaching become personal to us, filling our dry places with abundant watering. When we look at the Hebrew meanings behind these words an even sweeter message meets us in our longings.

PAUSING TO REFLECT

Pausing and looking into Strong’s Lexicon of Hebrew words shows us that “teaching” can mean insight or instruction. If we continue to look at those meanings, then the first picture of that instruction or insight is “to fall,” or to “drop or trickle like a gentle rain.” The second picture is that of dew descending, or “flowing down.” And the third picture with the meanings looked into is that of abundant rain, or “copious showers bringing fertility” to the young plants.

Can you see the beautiful progression? In the dry and thirsty places of our lives, God wants to bring us to a place of gentle teaching, like a slow stream of raindrops. But He doesn’t want us to stay in that place of slow trickling. No, He wants to move us further, into a flowing, and finally into the copious showers of His growth.

A poem expressed as praise came forth as I paused with the Scripture:

Trickling rain falls

Dew flows down reaching my heart

Copious thirst quenched

Perhaps the Lord would move in your heart to listen for the falling rain of his teaching? Would you join us as we pray and ask for his Scriptures to become personal and gentle in our hearts?

Dear Heavenly Father,

We must confess that we have become so thirsty for life in this heavy-laden world. There are days that the pain consumes and parches our souls. Will you let your teaching, your very words, drop like the dew into the desert places of our lives? Help us to open wide our hearts to receive the gift of your gentle teaching, and to allow your copious rains to bring fresh growth into our barren places. We long to be refreshed by your living water.

In the name of your son, Jesus, we pray,

Amen.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION:

How is His Word falling onto your heart today?

Can you pause to listen for the dew drops of His teaching?

Is there a prayer you can offer back to God from the parched places of your life?