How Dry I Am... How Wet I'll Be...

“It is a feeble love that the fire of persecution can dry up; the true believer’s love is a deeper stream than this.” – C.H. Spurgeon

Summertime in Florida is known for its heavy thunderstorms. These almost daily deluges usually occur in the middle of the afternoon when the heat and humidity have been building up all day to a climax and something simply has to give.

BOOM!!! Lightning flashes across the sky and thunder echoes from one end of the county to the other, the ground rumbling beneath your feet. In just a few minutes’ time, a couple of inches of rain can fall and then… POOF! The clouds clear and the skies turn blue again, all in the span of about 15-20 minutes.

As they say in Florida, “If you don’t like the weather, just wait 10 minutes”. In other words, hang in there, because things are about to change.

Except this summer has been an aberration, because we have gone weeks on end without a drop of rain. And so, whereas our lakes and ponds are usually spilling over this time of year, many of them are dangerously low. One can only wonder what will happen to the water levels once we hit the supposedly “dry season” from December through February, when all the snowbirds appear.

As Chrles Spurgeon points out in today’s quote, our love for God isn’t something that should wax and wane depending upon our circumstances. On the contrary, it should be constantly filled to overflowing because its source isn’t temporal, but eternal. The Holy Spirit indwells us in good times and bad, amidst times of plenty and harvest… and times of famine and drought.

Here is a further explanation from the “Prince of Preachers”…

“It is our daily lament that we cannot love enough. If only our hearts were capable of holding more and reaching further. Like Samuel Rutherford, we sigh and cry, ‘Oh, for as much love as would go round about the earth, and over heaven—yes, the heaven of heavens, and ten thousand worlds—that I might expand it all upon this fairest Lord Jesus.’”

Ah yes, fairest Lord Jesus, ruler of all nature, O thou of God and man the Son, Thee will I cherish,
Thee will I honor, thou, my soul's glory, joy, and crown. (Friedrich von Spee)

“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”
Ephesians 3:17-19 (NIV)

- Rev. Dale M. Glading, President