COOL...CLEAR...WATER (water, water)

Greetings Oh Thirsty Ones. Have you had your thirst QUENCHED lately...or are you felling slightly PARCHED? In the absence of RAIN...the land becomes DRY. You may not noticed it at first. It is progressive. It does not rain for a while...as each night you watch you weatherman/woman talk about how nice the weather is...with no rain in the forcast so that you can enjoy you weekend or you holiday. The temperatures may even be pleasant...but each night as you tune in for the weather...you notice that the temperature is going up...along with high humity. You become increasingly uncomfortable...and talk around the WATER COOLER turns to how we need some RAIN...to at least cool thing off. The progression continues...and you notice that your green lawn is quickly turn in to splotches of green with large pockets of brown. Boy...we sure do need some RAIN...it's going to ruin the crops. Before you know it...grass is gone...dry, cracked, brittle dirt forms. No relief in sight...we get desperate...and then begin to pray to God for RAIN.

Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers...croon how they need some cool...clear...
Water (water, water). There was another musician that mused for a relief from the dryness.You may have heard about him...King David. He was writing from the perspective of thirst in the wilderness of Judah.

"O GOD, Thou are my God; I shall SEEK The EARNESTLY; My soul THIRSTS for Thee, my flesh YEARNS for Thee, IN A DRY AND WEARY LAND...where there is NO WATER." (Psalm 63:1) You can almost here The Sons of the Pioneers echoing in the background...cool, clear water...(water, water). NOTE: When David writes his Psalms... they usually present the problem...either need to repent, enemies surrounding, dryness of land reflecting dryness of spiritual condition...but he shifts to the solution...GOD. David was basically an early blues singer with a twist. He bemoans the circumstance but declares the CIRCUMSTANCE BUSTER. He may go THROUGH the valley of the shadow of death (Psalm 23)...but he does GO THROUGH IT. The old saying is if you are going through HELL...do stop...just keep on going...and you'll eventually come out.


As I am typing out this Ruminator Rambling...I am listening to a song over and over again by a group called PFR. The PFR...stands for the original name of the group (that had to be changed because another group had the name)...PRAY FOR RAIN. This was the name of the group...the name of their first album...and the name of a song on the album. The song speaks of the dryness and the need for the rain to come.

"Born in a dry season...wind and sand have blown through me...haven't found shade anywhere...only moments of relief...but sometimes I think I hear the thunder...somewhere on the horizon line...if I could just find a way to get under the rain...that can reach this soul of mine." (Pray For Rain). Like David...the boys speak of the problem. The chorus speaks of solution..."I pray for RAIN to come...and wash away what's made me numb...I pray for a raging storm to drown what's in me...and the rain comes IN THE NICK OF TIME...I swallow hard cause my throat's been DRY...the rain comes beating on my skin...till I'm washed away...nothing left within...WHEN THE RAIN COMES...YOUR RAIN COMES." I love this song...because I relate to the DRY times in my spiritual walk over the past37 years...and how when I turn to Him...my dryness is quenced. Sometimes the dryness is of my own making as I neglect to drink in of the LIVING WATERS (John 7:37-39). I am not doing any big overt sins...just neglecting my relationship with Him...and I am drying out. Other times...I am knowingly sinning...and I enter dry times because...I have separated myself from the source of water. Then there are times...when there is spiritual attack...damming up the flow of water...and I need to stand and demand that satan get behind me so the water can flow. Whatever the cause...I need water to survive. I don't need to dehydrate.

To stay hydrated...and avoid dehydration..and it's cousin malnourishment...resulting in FAILURE TO THRIVE...I must WALK BY FAITH. My water is not dependent on WHAT I SEE OR FEEL...but it is dependent in my relationship to the WORD OF GOD (faith comes by hearing the Word of Christ). We see in James 5:16-18...that The EFFECTUAL...FERVENT PRAYER of a righteous man availeth/prevails MUCH. Now...usually people begin to back peddle...and say that I am not a righteous man/woman. I am not like Moses...Mother Mary...Elijah!!! BUT YOU ARE!

"Elijah was a man with A NATURE LIKE OURS...and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain; and it did not rain on the eath for three years and six months. And he prayed again...and the SKY POURED RAIN and the earth PRODUCED its fruit." (James 5:17,18) NOTE: For full details read I Kings 17 and 18). This is a picture of how we need to be praying when we are dry...for a prayer that will availeth/previal much. He prayed fervently...with tenacity and did not give up... and with HOPE...that kept looking for the desired reult...RAIN. Elijah would send his servant out to LOOK FOR THE RAIN....The servant went out SEVEN times...but came back with the report of NO RAIN IN SIGHT...until the last time...when He saw a cloud the size of a fist. HALLELUJAH....here comes the RAIN.

On the PRAY FOR RAIN album cover you see the boys with UMBRELLAS open...but no rain. That is a prayer of faith. So many times we pray for something...without acting as if we believe that we have it. We want to wait for the rain...before we bring out the umbrellas...but a true prayer of faith would...start carrying the umbella in CONFIDENT EXPECTATION (aka hope) of rain. In the eyes of the uniformed...foolishness...in the eyes of God...PLEASING FAITH (Hebrews 11:6)

I want to encourage you...as you go through a dry season...pray...get into the Word...let the Spirit flow in you...and get your umbrella out in expectancy of the dry, cracked, parched land to be flooded with rain. It may get muddy...but that's part of the process of restoration...not necessarily neat...but Oh as life comes back to the land.

"Thus I have beheld Thee in the sanctuary, to see Thy power and Thy glory...Because Thy lovingkindness is BETTER THAN LIFE...my lips will praise Thee...So I will bless Thee as long as I live (in the dry and wet times)...I will lift up my hands in Thy name (as an act of faith) My sould is satisfied as with marrow and fatness...and my mouth offers praises with joyful lips." (Psalm 63:3-5)

Love and Partly Clouded Kisses
Rodney "Rainman" Boyd