So, I'm going to do what I usually do with beautiful things. I tear them apart like a small child discovering the wonder of flowers for the first time.
If you didn't check out the link above, here are the lyrics we'll be taking a closer look at:
We pray for blessings, we pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
And all the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things
'Cause what if your blessings come through rain drops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise
We pray for wisdom, Your voice to hear
We cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt your goodness, we doubt your love
As if every promise from Your word is not enough
And all the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we'd have faith to believe
'Cause what if your blessings come through rain drops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise
When friends betray us
When darkness seems to win
We know that pain reminds this heart
That this is not,
This is not our home
It's not our home
'Cause what if your blessings come through rain drops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near
What if my greatest disappointments or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can't satisfy
What if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are your mercies in disguise
So, how do we start off? First we heard a list of things we commonly pray for - and we've all done it. It's big things like peace and blessings and all that jazz, but even more material things like protection and prosperity. Is that bad? Of course not. Story even says that God "hears each spoken need" But that's not what this song is about.
No, this song is about the times that God doesn't give us what we want - or so we think.
Would God actually deny our request for peace, protection, blessing and healing? Of course not. Jesus directly, clear-as-day tells us that whatever we ask shall be given (Mt. 7:7). He compares it to us asking our human fathers for something: "Which one of you would hand his son a stone when he asks for bread, or a snake when he asks for a fish?" (9-10) If we, who are fallible little humans, know how to treat our children...imagine how much more God will know how to give us gifts.
What happens, then, when it seems our prayers go unanswered? We pray for peace but all we see is stress and trouble. How can we say that God will give what we ask when so much of our experience seems to say otherwise?
That's what this song is about. Maybe, just maybe, God uses our hardships to answer our prayers. Maybe our "blessings come through raindrops."
"But wait," you might say if you were cynical, "You're saying that God's the reason for all my problems! What the H-E-double-sippy-straws!"
I was getting there, geez. No, God does not cause problems just to teach you a lesson. Because let's be honest - there is enough hurt and pain and trouble in the world that God doesn't need to make any more. We take care of that ourselves. What God can (and does) do, though, is make all things work together for our good.
Why, though? Because God "loves us way too much to give us lesser things." That's how great God is. Anybody can give people good things through good things...but it takes something special to give somebody good things through bad things. And that's exactly what God does. God lets us experience sadness so that we know what happiness is. God lets us feel alone so we appreciate His presence more. God doesn't make us sad, but sometimes he lets it happen - not because he doesn't love us, or wants to see us unhappy. He allows things sometimes because we're pretty stupid sometimes. Sometimes we need something that hurts in order to learn the lessons that matter.
One day you might have a child. And while I'm certain you'll be an absolutely excellent parent, this child is going to make some stupid choices when they're young. Every five year old, or ten year old, (or thirty year old) does things that will make you give them a look that just says what? I definitely had that phase.
When I was four, my sisters had this plastic kitchen playset. It was about four feet tall and had a stove, and cupboards, and a microwave and was every girls dream. It was also conveniently placed near the window. So, I would climb up there to see if my grandma's car was outside yet! My mom told me over and over not to climb on it, but what did she know anyway? I was being clever.
I also had this plastic pitch fork, and I had removed the head from it. So it was essentially a long plastic tube. One day I had climbed up, checked for grandma (no grandma) and needed to get back down. My mind instantly latched onto the pole-vaulters in a cartoon I had seen recently. So, in my best impression of a pole-vaulter, I got a firm grip on the tube, planted my feet on the plastic stove.....placed the pole in my mouth and jumped.
I never climbed on the kitchen center again.
Did I learn the exact same lesson my mom was trying to teach me all along? Yes. Did I have to learn it the hard way? Yes.
God tells us all of the things we need to know to be a successful member of society. The Bible (and especially the Gospels) pretty much spells it out for us. But even the oldest and wisest of us is like a child compared to God. A child that sometimes tries to pole-vault.
The song goes through lists of bad things, and how they can be turned to good. The one that always stuck out to me was "When friends betray us...pain reminds us that this is not, this is not our home"
It's very easy to lose sight of that sometimes. This world, for as great as it is, isn't the end-all-be-all. We're just passing through. We own nothing in this world. The earth and everything in it (even our bodies) isn't ours - we are just taking care of it for a while. This is not our home, so we can't expect to be happy all the time. We can't expect things to be perfect. If we were made for this world, everything would be fine. But we weren't. We are made for heaven, and God is calling us home every day.
Think about that. Every day, every step we take is bringing us home. Back to the God who made us. The God who wants us to be happy and knows that sometimes we need to learn the hard way.
Maybe right now you're thinking that your life is going swell. No raindrops here. Good for you...but it won't always be that way. Maybe right now you're really with it so far because you're in the middle of a storm. Things just haven't been going right lately. Maybe you're feeling that hurt more acutely. Maybe it's hard to see God through it all. But you know what? It's passing. Whether it takes a day or a month or a year or a decade, the storms always pass if you persevere.
I hope to write more about this "dark night of the soul", as St. John of the Cross called it. When God seems to remove his presence and we are left in darkness. I urge you, my brothers and sisters, to hang on. "There may be pain in the night, but joy comes in the morning."
Through it all, there's always a lesson for us to learn. I've always been the kind of guy who likes to "fix" things. You tell me a problem, I'll offer a solution. It only seems natural - I'm doing my part to help! But what I struggle to realize is that people don't always want advice. They want somebody to be there. Sometimes people need a sturdy rock more than a shining knight. And you know what? I always struggled with that. I couldn't get the lesson through my (admittedly thick) skull so God let me into a situation where I couldn't do anything to fix it. And yeah, it sucked. It sucked bad, and it hurt bad. God was able to turn even that terrible situation into something for my good. He saw me powerless, and used it to show me His power. He saw me sad, and showed me His joy. Through it all, God was trying to remind me that I was nothing without Him. We need God more than the air we breathe. Our hearts are restless until the rest in God.
"If you're in a bad situation, don't worry, it'll change. If you're in a good situation...don't worry, it'll change"
Our hearts are restless until they rest in God. That's what we should take from all this. Yeah, things might suck right now. It might be dark, and cold, and lonely, and everything hurts. But there's still something to learn here. God's still trying to show you something.
So today, or tomorrow, or the next time you find yourself in a storm of the soul....don't look at the size of the raindrops. Look at how good they are at washing you clean.
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