Do You Hear What I Hear?

The sky hinted at rain, although I couldn't tell for sure.  Dark in the west, but no dark spots on the concrete. It's been a very long time since the concrete was dark....

I opened the back door to listen.  You couldn't see it, but if you stood still and held your breath, you could just softly hear that beautiful sound.

Rain.

A symphony of tiny little drops, tickling the leaves high up in the backyard maples.

Do you hear what I hear?

It won't be enough to wipe out the summer drought.  It's probably not enough to stop harvest for a day, or even enough to knock the dust down.  It's too little, too late to help the corn yields or to flesh out this year's crop of hay.

But it's still a wonderful, gentle, quiet reminder:  We didn't make this earth and we still don't control its cycles and seasons, the patterns and principles that God set in motion -- for our benefit -- many, many years ago.

Do you hear it?  The reminder that nothing in all our man-made grandeur is as astounding as the first beat of a tiny human heart, the last breath of a weary set of lungs, or the brilliance and complexity of a world of maple leaves painting the sky and then letting go in the fall.

Do you hear what I hear?  The whisper of a God in control, played out as a thousand raindrops dance on a thousand glorious leaves in my backyard.  The touch of that same God who made the world out of what was not visible,  and set it under our feet, knowing we would mess it up horribly.  The God who had a  plan to redeem and restore, to overcome all of our failings and destruction and downright hatred, and to set the world right again.  Have you heard that marvelous promise?

Sometimes we can't see it.  Sometimes every glint of hope, every possibility of redemption and good, seems to be covered over with greed, death, loss, selfishness, ugliness so powerful that it threatens to choke us. But what is coming, what is promised, is not made out of what we see.

Stand still and hold your breath and listen.  Do you hear what I hear?

"The child, the child, sleeping in the night, he will bring us goodness and light."

It's already started.  Look for it.  Listen........