Genesis 7:12

One Of Our Best Friends

And the rain was upon the earth. Genesis 7:12.

Have you ever taken any interest in rain? Perhaps you are not very fond of it. You think it is rather a spoil-sport. All it seems to do is to interrupt plans. You arrange a nice picnic or trip outside in the summer time, and on comes the rain and you have to stay at home. Or perhaps you risk setting out although the sky looks threatening, and you arrive at your destination and have just got the camp fire lit and the kettle boiled for tea when suddenly there is a perfect thunder, and you have to gather your belongings together, and run as fast as you can for shelter.

Well of course all that is very provoking; but, after all, the rain couldn't help your having fixed the picnic for that particular day and hour, and it couldn't help falling at that particular time. It just had to do what it was told. The rain is one of our very best friends, and we are going to find out some of the things it does.

1. First of all, rain makes things grow. If there were no rain, the flowers and the trees would die, the most perfect seed would come to nothing. But not only would the flowers perish, the animals would perish, and the boys and girls too. For if it ceased to rain there would, in time, be no food and nothing to drink, and we should all die of starvation and thirst. Perhaps some of you may think, “Oh, but we could get water from streams and wells.” But what is it that feeds the streams and wells? Just the rain that comes down from the sky and sinks into the ground and comes up again in the form of springs. You know how small the streams are after a long dry spell in summer. That is just because there has been no rain to feed them.

2. Besides making things grow the rain refreshes and beautifies. How green the grass looks after a shower, how beautiful it is with all the little drops glistening on each blade, and how the drooping flowers hold up their heads again! Have you noticed also how sweetly everything smells the leaves on the trees, and the flowers in the garden, and the clover in the fields?

3. Then rain is a great cleanser. It purifies the air, and makes it good to breathe. You may not think that there is much dirt in the air, but if you look into a rain-water barrel you will see at the bottom quite a lot of dirt, and this has all been brought down out of the air by the rain.

4. There is one other thing that rain does. It wears away rocks. If you went to Egypt you would see the figure of the Great Sphinx which was carved out of stone thousands of years ago. It has the body of a lion and the head of a man. Until lately the Sphinx was almost perfect, but some years ago people began to make channels to lead the water of the Nile through the land so that the bare desert parts might become fruitful. Then they planted trees. The sun drank up the water from the channels, and the moisture came down again in the form of rain, and where there was formerly a very dry climate there are now plenteous showers. Do you know what has happened? The poor Sphinx is beginning to lose his nose! It is the rain that is doing it all. And what it does to the Sphinx, it is doing to the rocks too. You might think it would require an earthquake or a very heavy blow or an explosion to split a rock. A rock may be cleft that way, but it can be done just as surely by the rain through the ages.

God's love is just like the rain. It comes down gently and quietly and fills our hearts. Like the rain it makes the flowers grow the flowers of unselfishness and goodness. Like the rain it refreshes and beautifies. It restores those who have become weary by the way, it makes ugly characters beautiful. Like the rain it purifies. It cleanses us from all that is bad and unworthy and makes us pure. Like the rain it breaks the rocks, the hard rocks of indifference and opposition.

God fills our hearts with His love. He gives us it freely. But He wants us to go and be drops of rain for Him. He wants us to try to make other people happy, to make their lives a little sweeter and more beautiful. We can all do it by a smile, by a kind word, by a helpful deed.

Perhaps some of you may say, “Oh, but I am so small, and there is so little that I can do.” A raindrop is a very small thing and you might think it wouldn't matter whether it fell or not. But it is the single raindrops that make up the showers, and if each raindrop made up its mind not to fall there would be no shower and the flowers would die of thirst.

In India there is a wonderful gorge on the river Nerbudda. The stream cuts its way between two high cliffs of marble. How do you think it managed to do this? It did not happen all in a day. It was the water that did it. Each little drop of water did its part and helped to wear away its own little atom of marble through the ages. So do your part, even though it be a tiny one, and you will help to carry out God's great plan for the world.