Since last Monday it has rained heavily in Vegas thrice, and both times despite the lightning I went out into the storm. You see, I feel like God is in the rain, and the show it put on was an opportunity for me to consider how great He is while enjoying a free shower and fireworks display. The last two times I was out, I watched lightning strike quite near me, and so I did a lot of praying and thinking and thanking, particularly in light of modern circumstances and last Sunday’s lesson.
As the world insists on setting its own terms, rain continues to precipitate from the heavens. In fact, it falls generally only one direction- earthward. Eventually rain becomes so heavy compared to the clouds that the nucleated drops of liquid no longer remain compatible with the cloud and leave. Due to their greater density, they fall downward, sometimes with a resounding plop, on our heads. We however seem to think that commandments and revelation flow upwards. We think that our trials are because God needs to know things about us. He already knows what we will do. We are the ones who do not yet know. We think that our prayers are opportunities to tell God what to get us, as if He’s some sort of Santa Claus who fulfills wish lists. He already knows what He’ll give us. It’s about something greater than our immediate satisfaction.
Far too many people, including Christians, misapprehend their role in the universe. We boss God around the universe and then get upset when He neglects to follow our commandments while we flagrantly violate the ones He gave us. While I like many things about the current Pope, I do not think he’s always speaking for God. I find it disingenuous to solemnize relationships of people living in sin and a few other stances Francis took of late, because it will embolden those in our society who think licentious and lawless behavior ought be licensed. Joseph Fielding Smith taught that “It is not our prerogative to decide that some principles no longer apply to our social and cultural circumstances”. God sets the terms. Making something legal does not make it right; giving you permission does not give you virtue. What these people essentially want to do is change the natural law without changing the natural consequences. At the same time they worship science, they ignore that every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
I have seen many people leave their own Faith, including members of mine, because God asked something hard of them. That is what wicked people do. The wicked man changes the rules to comport to his conduct; the righteous change their conduct to comport with God’s commandments. A woman I know who was slightly interested in investigating my Faith pulled out two very obscure things for discussion because they allowed her to flagrantly reject it because she just “couldn’t get behind those things”. Yet, I know people who do this while they wear t-shirts on which the phrase is emblazoned “God says it, I believe it, that settles it.” Well, if they choose not to believe it, that settles it too, according to them. The thing is that God does sometimes ask strange things. Walking out into the Sinai desert can’t have been easy. Killing everyone in Canaan, sacrificing Isaac, building an ark, calling down fire on a sacrifice, attacking Midian with 300 men and many other things can’t have been easy or made much sense. I myself have betimes asked God, “Are you sure that’s what you want?”, but in the end, I go and do, and I have seen myself brought to a land of promise.
The promise of faith is that God communicates with man. You can and ought gain a testimony of what He asks for yourself. While God always has chosen men to speak on His behalf to the great majority of us, He has not left us to take their word for it. He invites us to pray always. When we do, we may “hear a voice behind you that says- this is the way. Walk ye in it (James E Faust)” that clears up difficulties and helps us comply with the commandments God gives us.
While out in the rain this past Friday night, I decided to combine my jogging with the storm. It seemed to be off near the mountain to the east, so I thought I’d be fine. As I reached a corner ½ mile from my house, I felt impressed to turn there and keep a tighter circle to my domicile. About ¾ mile before I finished, it started to rain. Then it started to lightning. Then it started to flood. I only had to spend ½ mile in the storm, but if I had taken the other path on which I originally determined, I would have been soaked to the bone, perhaps struck by lightning, or wisked away in the waters. It seems like a small thing, but in the moment to me it seemed great.
Too often we are like the desert when it comes to the rains of revelation. We become so hard and so dry that there is no place for the rain of revelation to soak our souls and help the seeds of faith grow. The water runs away from us, runs off into the distance like water off a duck’s back, and we do not benefit from the rains even though we thirst for living waters. When we do not give place because it seems hard or because it does not corroborate what we already believe or hope God will tell us, we cannot benefit from its soothing and life-giving power. We are hard. Our ruts go deep. We know we are right. We are solid. We are also vain and stolid and stalwart against God’s attempts to bless us. He wants us to blossom as a rose, but we resist like the desert and part of our possibility erodes away and is lost to us. God knows us, and He watches over us, but He does not mess with free will. We can resist the rain and revelations to our own peril.
Sometimes things don’t make sense or lead us where we think they ought, but that doesn’t mean they are not the right things. I’ve hiked enough mountains to know that sometimes the best way to the top requires us to meander far out of the way, up steep switchbacks, and across difficult terrain. Sure, there might be a shorter way, but if it was better, it would be common and cut and curated so that people could arrive alive and quickly. It never has been easy to leave Egypt, but it has always been the only way for us to obtain the Promised Land. In the Sinai desert, there is little rain of revelation, and the longer we march the more we may fear we made a mistake and that it would be better to remain bondage in Egypt. We have to learn to trust and press forward knowing that God will light the path before us another few steps and help us make our way to a better place. When the rains come, embrace them, for while the house on the sand washed away, the house built on the Rock stood firm.
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