God is Faithful

I saw a friend post a rain gauge with a glorious inch of rain in it this morning with the caption, “God is faithful!” Indeed He is, and we should post about it every time we have that full rain gauge.

But it strikes me, the same is true when our rain gauge is empty. When our grass is brown, the cure doesn’t come, the marriage is crumbling, the child is dead, the dream is gone, hope feels lost…we have to believe that God is just as faithful in the dry times as well.

And that’s sure not as easy to do. I am good at praising Him when my kids are jumping in mud puddles and my cows are standing on green grass. It takes a lot more effort on a morning like this, when I catch a glimpse of the empty rain gauge and the dwindling pile of hay bales and wonder how this will all work out. Or an evening when the chance of rain blew right on past and my kids ask why God hasn’t answered our prayers that we pray every night.

I think, though, this might be when believing in and proclaiming His faithfulness matters most. I also think this is why having a discipline of gratitude and faithfulness matters so much. We need the discipline not when it’s raining, but when it’s parched.

Shaun’s Neiquist puts it this way in her book I Guess I Haven’t Learned That Yet: “It’s easy, of course, to buzz the beach (look for beauty and joy) and find the sparkle on good days—the days when the sun is shining and your heart is light. When it gets really dark, though, that’s when you start to understand that it’s a discipline, and you need it in the dark so much more desperately than you need it in the light. Joy and celebration are practices for the long haul.”

So today, I’m re-reading Psalm 46: 1-3. “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.”

So, here, with my empty rain gauge, I’ll say it again. God is faithful. God is faithful. God is faithful.

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