I love sunshine. It just makes me happy to be out in a sunny day. When it’s a pretty morning, I get back from the gym, and spend the next several hours on my back deck talking on the phone, meeting with people, writing or thinking…whatever it is I have planned for the morning will take place outside in the sunshine. So what about when it rains? I love that too. I don’t sit outside on my deck and work in the rain, but I enjoy the sound and feel and smell of the rain. Especially a summer rain. I prefer sunshine to rain in general. But I understand and appreciate the rain.
Pastor Dave Baldwin at Uniontown Bible Church said “all sunshine makes a desert” in a recent sermon. He said it as though it was an old saying, but it wasn’t old to me. I had never heard this before. It’s such a simple concept to keep in our minds about our lives in general. It applies to everything we do. If you had sunshine 365 days a year, it would not be long before it wasn’t as appreciated. It wouldn’t just be the practical idea that without rain you would have a desert, it would be like a desert in your mind.
The rain makes life better. It is needed for things to grow. It’s part of the balance of nature.
When you are pursuing a work of some sort, of course you would want their to be as many sunny days as possible. But all sunshine and good times in your work leads to much less than you are capable of. The rain and clouds and storms in your pursuits make you better. They grow you. Success does not grow you. It only reveals more of what you currently are. But trials and challenges, they are what grow you, hone you, sharpen you, make you stretch and reach and push.
You do not want the desert of all sunshine in your life. This would be a curse. It would guarantee a mediocre life. We only discover that we can do better when we are pushed to. This is why athletes need coaches. What they think is “all they’ve got” isn’t remotely true. Coaches push them beyond what they think they can. Ten more steps when they thought they couldn’t take one.
This is the value of the rain in your life. Let it rain. And then a better sun will shine.
