“Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” – James 1:15 NIV
We’ve made it thirty-six days so far, and I gotta admit I’ve had a pretty fun time! I hope you have, too. I think back to all of the different thoughts I’ve had and things I’ve written over the last month and, all-in-all, it has been a pretty positive and, at least for me, pretty uplifting period of time. But then, we arrive at Day 36, and James 1:15 decides to rain all over our parade. Desire, sin, death. It’s enough to get a guy down in the dumps.
That is, until I remember, I love the rain. My wife hates it when I say this because she is a sunshine and 70 degree kind of person, but I really do love the rain. I love to walk in the rain, drive in the rain, sit inside and watch the rain. Drizzles, downpours, and everything in between, they actually make me really happy. So when this passage popped up and started talking about sin and desire and death, I thought let’s try to make the most of this rainy passage. Let’s try and bring a little 70 and sunny to this parade.
Unfortunately, I am not sure I am the man for that job. We’re gonna encounter some rain in our lives. Our basements are gonna flood and our roofs are gonna leak and we’re gonna be walking down the road and a car is going to run through a puddle and splash it all over us. It’s just a fact of life. As The Ink Spots sang in 1944, “Into each life some rain must fall.”
I’m also not the guy who is going to write about how sunnier days are always ahead, or how a little rain never hurt anyone, because that’s just not true. Sin hurts people. Desire gets us into a ton of trouble. Death is scary as hell.
But as a lover of rain, I am the guy who is going to implore you to give it another chance. Maybe tap into your inner Gene Kelly and go for a dance in it. Or find your inner Ryan Gosling and profess your love in it. Or uncover your inner Andy Dufresne and celebrate your freedom in it.
What Lies Before 