So much for the whole “April showers bring May flowers” thing. My yard is parched despite habitual daily watering on my part, and apparently there is no relief in sight as far as the rain is concerned. We were close last night, but not close enough. Our neighbors in Slidell and Hancock County were blessed with a shower or two, but not us. If things continue as such, I may ride my motorcycle to work as that's usually a sure bet to bring on a monsoon of epic proportions. At least that has been proven as the case for me in the past.
The weather forecasters all but promised us precipitation, both yesterday and today. And I trusted them. Someone I know personally (and since I do not use names on this blog I’ll just call him ‘my dad’) has a lot of fun with me when we compare the latest weather forecasts. We’ve decided the best you can hope for from the paid prognosticators is an accuracy rate of around forty percent. Keep in mind they make good money performing that job. Anyway.
Yesterday afternoon the skies darkened and the wind picked up out of the North. You could smell the rain in the air as all signs (including those from the weatherman) pointed toward a sure inundation. I went with my wife and kids to attend a tent revival in McNeill, but we were convinced we were going to be leaving early due to the ominous clouds building above us. It was a sure thing if ever I saw one, and immediately I began to be thankful; knowing I would not have to water the lawn the next day. The flowers would come back, the grass would turn from brown to green, and best of all - the pollen would be washed from everything stationary whether animate or inanimate. But despite the signs, the forecasts, and all things I took for granted as known; nothing happened. No rain. No thunder. Just a calm evening with heat lightning dancing across the sky on the dark southern horizon.
It was disheartening, but not really that big of a deal when I thought about it. I will have to continue my watering chores each evening, but it will eventually rain again. It always does. The verse from Genesis comes to mind after the flood, when G_d promised Noah about seedtime and harvest, etc. The rain will return and I will follow-up by complaining about how that rain sure does make the grass grow a little too fast for my liking.
It kind of reminds me of preachers in the past, and sermons I’ve heard from each on the Second Coming, the Tribulation, and the Rapture of the Church. In 1973, when I was a mere lad of 11 or so, the Arab alliances invaded Israel in what became known as the Yom Kippur war. Many comparisons were made at the time to Ezekiel’s war as prophesied in chapter 38 of his book, and it actually made a lot of sense. Later on we had the election of Ronald Reagan, and a lot of folks made reference to his name, Ronald Wilson Reagan, as having six letters in each part of his nom de plume, hence the number 666. (I never believed for a moment that he was the anti-Christ, I’m just using this as an example!)
One prophecy that did make me anxious of the possibility we were close to the end occurred in the late 1980’s. I do not remember who the ‘prophet’ was at the time, but he had data configured to prove that 1988 would usher in the end of time. It was forty years, or the end of a Biblical generation after Israel had been reborn as a nation and that sounded accurate to me. Of course it didn’t come to pass, but I still consider it one of the best predictions as it had me convinced at the time that it was legit.
These prophecies have escalated since then, with Y2K among other examples. We’ve had several wars in the Middle East along with enough earthquakes and natural disasters to forge our thoughts into believing that surely the time of the end is…now. Seeing how the so-called experts have been wrong so many times in the past, what should we believe at this point? Does this in any way change things for us? Are world events at this hour any different for us today than it was for our parent’s generation before we were even born?
My answer is that it does not matter. What does matter is that I strive to be as one of the seven wise virgins Jesus spoke about - I must be ready for that day to come at all times, beginning with today. Selling all my possessions, stockpiling ammunition and dried foodstuffs, and moving off to a hidden enclave in the hills will do me no good at all if I am not ready in my heart for His return. True, I don’t know the day nor the hour, but much like the rain I spoke of earlier, I know it will happen soon enough. In our fast-paced world it is easy to lose sight of that fact, and to honestly believe in a return of Christ could even lead to open ridicule these days. Peter summed it up with a prophecy that very closely resembles the attitudes we can currently see in our own society today: “Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.”
The weatherman says we will have another chance for rain later on this week. I’ll water my lawn as best I can, and I might ride the motorcycle in to work tomorrow to hedge my bets. I’ll go about my life as per normal. Because I know that even if he is wrong again, it’s still only a matter of time before the rains will finally come.
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