October 20, 2025 - Good Morning! It’s Monday, October 20.
Last Saturday something happened at my house in Tenaha, Texas that hasn’t happened in a long time. It rained. We’ve been suffering from a drought, but on Saturday afternoon we enjoyed a long, slow, soaking rain. And then, right after dark, we had a gulley-washer! It was just what we needed, and it was a blessing.
My county, Shelby, gets an average of 53 inches of rain each year. That’s one of the highest levels in the state. The lowest is in the El Paso area where they only get about nine. That’s a wide range. The Holy Land has a similar wide range. Along the coast, cities like Tel Aviv can get over 40 inches of rain in a year. People in Northern Israel, near the Sea of Galilee, can expect 30. Jerusalem is drier, getting about 20, and Southern Israel, in the Negev Desert, is even drier than El Paso.
But wherever you live in Israel, there is a dry season - April to September - and a rainy season - October to March. Very, very little rain falls in the dry season. The season that is beginning right now has two parts, the autumn rains and the spring rains. The autumn moisture softens the ground for planting, and the spring showers prepare the crops for the harvest. The Bible usually refers to them as the early rains and the latter rains.
God’s Word speaks of rain many times. That’s not surprising since its initial readers lived in a semi-arid environment and were people of the land and dependent on its bounty for their very lives. Scripture says much about the things of Nature, and often uses natural things - like rain - as symbols of spiritual things. The latter rain is a metaphor for the outpouring of God’s Spirit, an outpouring that refreshes our spirits, and is a blessing.
Psalm 68:9 - “O God, you cause abundant rain to fall on your people. When they are weary, you sustain them.”
Meet you back here tomorrow,
David
cindertex50@yahoo.com
