Mark Spruill

It seems like it’s been raining in Atlanta for a month.  Truthfully, it’s only been about a week of rainy days.  But when sky’s are grey and the rain won’t stop, sunshine seems like afar away memory.

A week of daily downpours has our yard a muddy mess.  The ground can’t soak up any more water.  The grass is being washed away and we almost have a swamp in our back yard.  We’ve had a lot of rain.  But what we haven’t had, is a wet basement.  I am very thankful for the dry basement.

In times past, this much rain would have surely caused a small lake to form in my den.  This year, at least so far, we have avoided it.  For sure God’s grace and mercy is involved, but I think He has also helped me avoid it by other means.  Namely, hardship, experience, and preparation.  

The hardship of drying out a basement multiple times over the years has taught me several things.  The first is that drying out a basement is a real pain in the butt, so I don’t want to do it if I don’t have to. The second is that I have to be diligent about preparation.  I can’t procrastinate.  If the gutters are full of leaves and overflowing, and if downspouts and landscaping don’t send the water away from the house, I’m in trouble.  

This year, I’ve been on the roof cleaning gutters several times, even once or twice in the rain.  It beats dealing with a flooded basement any day.  But it’s really hard to make myself do it sometimes.  Especially if there is no rain in the forecast.  Here’s a word of advice: Sooner or later, there is always rain in the forecast.  Do yourself a favor.  Fix the gutters while the sun is shining.

There is a saying about how the early bird catches the worm.  But if that is true, what does the early worm catch?  His last meal before the early bird shows up?  I was thinking about this today while driving in to work after a cold night.  Winter decided to show its frosty head one more time this year.  And it caught some “early birds” by surprise.

It’s been a pretty mild winter in Georgia.  By the end of February we were getting warm days and comfortable nights.  Spring seemed to be coming early.  Some of the trees were getting a head start.  Flowering pear trees, red buds, wisteria and azalias were popping out their beautiful flowers, beconing the sun and pollinators to give them full attention.  They were the “early birds” of the plant world, and this year, they were thoroughly trounced by old man Winter. Last night’s 25 degree frost shrivaled leaves and flowers like a styrofoam cup in a camp fire.

All this demonstrates one thing to me.  Being the early bird is not always a good thing. While there can be benifit in being the early bird, there is also risk.  We may think we will get ahead by being the first, but it’s not always the case.  Sometimes, we wind up being the worm.

I have been thinking about worship lately.  If you lump it all together and define it as love / devotion / adoration, then it just might be the only thing we can give to God that he cannot take or get without us.  Everything else is under God’s sovereign control.  He owns everything.  He even ultimately owns me.  He can take my life whenever he pleases.  But one thing he can not take is my worship of him.  Because he gave us free will, my love, devotion, and adoration are the only real thing I can bring to the relationship.  Everything else, he can get himself.

All of this reminds me a little bit of the new puppy we have at home.  Gracie is a 12 week old German Shepherd and she has firmly established a relationship with our family.  She depends on us to provide for her needs.  She causes trouble, pees on the floor, doesn’t buy her own food, chews things she shouldn’t, tracks mud on the floor. . .  She really doesn’t bring much at all to the relationship except trouble . . . and love, devotion, and adoration.

When I come home from work, she greets me at the door like I am some long lost friend.  She jumps, licks, nips, whines, and generally makes a big scene until I reach down and give her some love.  When we are home together, she is happy.  When we are apart, she is sad.  When I praise her, she wags her tail.  When I rebuke her sternly, she grovels, licking my hand and begging for forgiveness, which I can’t help but willingly give.

I won’t say she worships me, but it does remind me a whole lot of what worship might be.  So, I decided to look up worship in the Bible.  I was reminded of the scripture where Jesus said we must worship God in spirit and in truth.  I read the scripture then looked up the definition of the Greek word for worship that was used there.  Wouldn’t you know, it’s probably derived from another word which means “. . . to kiss, like a dog licking his master’s hand.”

So, maybe there is a little bit of a picture of worship in a puppy’s relationship to his master.  If so, then I suppose I’m the puppy and God is the master.  But that’s OK with me, because I know how much this master loves his puppy.

It is supposed to rain tomorrow. After 42 days of dry weather and warm sunshine, I am looking forward to the rain.  Tomorrow there is a near 100% chance of gray skies, rain drops, mud, soggy shoes, and humid damp basements… and it will be wonderful.  I’m tempted to plan a picnic lunch tomorrow just so I can get rained on, all the while reminding myself life was never meant to be all blue skies and sunshine.