Our house on campus has a side yard, beautiful with a water feature, hundreds of flowers, ample places to sit and relax on mostly green grass. It’s always hard to get grass to flourish in the heavy shade under the huge trees, and now the heat and draught has turned those parts of the yard into pure dust. It’s been a brutal week of 100 degree weather in St. Louis. Today’s temperature is forecast to be a cool 97, Tuesday 98, Wednesday 102, and so on. The first rain is forecast for a week from today. I was in Iowa last Monday and a friend there told me the crops were good. Not so down here. Tim Johnson sells agricultural equipment. He said, “I’ve seen tough times. I’ve seen floods; I’ve seen droughts; I’ve seen diseases in crops. But as far as drought, I’ve never seen one this early, and I’ve never seen it this bad.” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 1; A9) Crops are far more important than a nice lawn, but whether you’re walking on a burned out lawn or down a dusty crop row, we’re reminded of our powerlessness and, if you’ll take it further, our mortality. “Dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return” (Genesis 3:19).
“The Lord watches over you – the Lord is your shade at your right hand; the sun will not harm you by day” (Psalm 121:5-6). How, dear Lord, is that true? John’s vision of heaven: “Never again will they hunger, never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat down on them, nor any scorching heat” (Revelation 7:16). God’s answer seems to be, “when the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’” (1 Corinthians 15:54). So it’s another now but not yet. Now the promise of no scorching heat but not yet the fulfillment of the promise. Now the dust becomes an occasion for hope, if we’ll not thwart the Spirit, the hope that we will one day see what John saw. “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb… On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations” (Revelation 22:1-2). But until hope is turned into sight, we need rain. Lord, could You please do for us what You did for Elijah in 1 Kings 18:44?
Comments