Have you ever seen the rain?
As I was praying and doing chores the other morning, a wisp of a song arose within me:
“I wanna know have you ever seen the rain?” (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
The words stirred something deep inside me, and as I sang them quietly, I felt the need to search out the rest of the lyrics.
This song had played during an era in my life when I was a camp counselor, living outside, sleeping under the stars, and swimming in Ozark lakes, creeks, and rivers. I wondered if the emotion I felt as I heard it was merely the stirring of the sleeping flower child still camping out somewhere inside of me.
And I remembered it was my older siblings who had introduced me to this music. Was the pull I felt just a reminder of how much I still loved and looked up to my big brother and sister?
Or was there something more primal, deeper than soul, drawing me? I had to know. This song touched something within me that day, so I googled it to see if the lyrics had anything to say to me.
In my search I found what others had written about the lyrics. To many of them, the song was sad and beautiful, simple and touching.
To me, however, it spoke of the rains of God. God’s rains often follow the tumultuous storms of discord, trial, and dismay in society. The storms erupt after periods of calm and complacency and spiraling hedonism. And as folks feel the very foundations of their lives shaken—those false values and structures in which they had so trusted—they start looking elsewhere—often Heavenward—for comfort and direction. And God sends the rains, raining a sunny day, raining a day of help, raining a day of salvation.
“Someone told me long ago there’s a calm before the storm
I know, it’s been coming for some time
When it’s over, so they say, it’ll rain a sunny day
I know, shinin’ down like water.”
Not everyone gets to see one of God’s rains. However, blessed is the generation that is so privileged to experience the outpouring. Strangely enough, Creedence Clearwater Revival wrote and sang during one of God’s downpours. I wonder if they realized it at the time.
The sixties and seventies witnessed the last bona fide widespread outpouring of God—at least in North America. I got in on the final days of that sweet time. The things I saw and experienced in the first four or five years of my walk with Jesus still elicit a deep longing for the rains to return.
“I wanna know, have you ever seen the rain?
I wanna know, have you ever seen the rain?
Coming down on a sunny day?”
When you meet someone who has seen the rain, lived in the rain, danced in the rain, they seem like anyone else. But if you scratch a bit, dig a bit below the dry surface, the flood waters still run within them, longing to be joined again by the rains from Heaven.
And then they will ask you:
“I wanna know, have you ever seen the rain?
I wanna know, have you ever seen the rain
Comin’ down on a sunny day?”
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