Showers of Blessing

“The crops look good.” Farmers agree and nod to each other over coffee or after worship in the church foyer. The fields do look good.

We’ve had rain, blessed rain at critical times in crop development:

when the corn germinated,

as dark green, leafy fingers reached high,

when ears were pollinating,

and the kernels were forming,

and as the soybeans plumped fat in their pods.

The grain bins in our part of the Midwest will probably be full to overflowing this fall. The saying in agricultural circles is “Rain makes grain.”

The rain falling on our corn and soybean fields is part of the great water cycle on earth. Water evaporates from the oceans and is blown inland. Then the moisture condenses into clouds, falls as rain or snow, and tumbles downhill into streams and rivers and back to the sea.

As I walked around the yard and farmstead after a storm, while the grass and flowers were still studded with raindrop jewels and the sky painted with God’s palette, I remembered an old hymn, “Showers of Blessing.” Perhaps you still sing it during your worship service, but I hadn’t heard it for a while and could only remember the refrain:

Showers of blessing,
Showers of blessing we need:
Mercy-drops round us are falling,
But for the showers we plead.

I had to check the internet for the verses, and I found the lyrics had been written in 1883 by D.W. Little. He wrote the words to about two hundred hymns and was an evangelist and Bible teacher. He described his war-time conversion:

When the Civil War broke out, I left my home in New England and came to Virginia as lieutenant of a company in a Massachusetts regiment. My dear mother was a devout Christian, and parted from me with many a tear, and followed me with many a prayer. She had placed a New Testament in a pocket of the haversack that she arranged for me.

. . . in one of the battles I was knocked out, and that night my arm was amputated above the elbow. As I grew better, having a desire for something to read, I felt in my haversack, . . . and found the little Testament my mother had placed there.

I read right through the book—Matthew, Mark, Luke, to Revelation. Every part was interesting to me; and I found to my surprise that I could understand it in a way that I never had before. . . . And so for days I continued reading, and with continued interest; and still with no thought of becoming a Christian, I saw clearly from what I read the way of salvation through Christ.

While in this state of mind, yet still with no purpose or plan to repent and accept the Saviour, I was awakened one midnight by the nurse, who said: ‘There is a boy in the other end of the ward, one of your men, who is dying. He has been begging me for the past hour to pray for him, or to get someone to pray for him, and I can’t stand it. I am a wicked man, and can’t pray, and I have come to get you.’

‘Why,’ said I, ‘I can’t pray. I never prayed in my life. I am just as wicked as you are.’ ‘Can’t pray!’ said the nurse; ‘why, I thought sure from seeing you read the Testament that you were a praying man. . . . I can’t go back there alone. Won’t you get up and come and see him at any rate?’

Moved by his appeal, I arose from my cot, and went with him to the far comer of the room. A fair-haired boy of seventeen or eighteen lay there dying. There was a look of intense agony upon his face, as he fastened his eyes upon me and said:

‘Oh, pray for me! Pray for me! I am dying. I was a good boy at home . . . But since I became a soldier I have learned to be wicked. . . . And now I am dying, and I am not fit to die! Oh, ask God to forgive me! Pray for me. Ask Christ to save me!’

As I stood there and heard these pleadings, God said to my soul by His Spirit, just as plainly as if He had spoken in audible tones, ‘You know the way of salvation. Get right down on your knees and accept Christ, and pray for this boy.’

I dropped upon my knees and held the boy’s hand in mine, as in a few broken words I confessed my sins, and asked God for Christ’s sake to forgive me. I believed right there that He did forgive me, and that I was Christ’s child; I then prayed earnestly for the boy. He became quiet, and pressed my hand as I pleaded the promises. When I arose from my knees he was dead. A look of peace was upon his face, and I can but believe that God, who used him to bring me to my Saviour, used me to get his attention fixed upon Christ and to lead him to trust in His precious blood. I hope to meet him in Heaven.

Many years have passed since that night in the Richmond Hospital, and I am still trusting and confessing the Lord Jesus Christ, and purpose by God’s grace to continue doing so until He calls me Home.

* * * * *

Whether we have a bin-buster crop or lose it all, “the shower of blessing” that we desperately need is the rain of God’s love, the mercy drops of His grace. The tender kindness that began in the great ocean of His love lifts up over the dry earth of our lives and falls down, pure and refreshing on our hearts. There is more than enough rain for us, the rest slides off, and runs to the creek. We love others, and they extend God’s loving kindness to even more people. We are part of the “water cycle” of God’s love.

We love because he first loved us. 1 John 4:19 NIV

Liquid love flooded out of a mother’s breaking heart.

She placed a New Testament in her son’s bag and sent him off to fight in the Civil War, not knowing if she would ever see him again.

Love steamed off the furnace-hot events of war.

A young man’s arm was amputated, and he read the books: Matthew through Revelation.

Love pelted down hard and fast on unbelieving souls, and

two soldier hearts were softened and healed.

Love-washed lyrics poured out of a redeemed life,

words that echoed in church rafters.

Love-wrapped rain gently trickled down the years

and streamed into a grateful pool that is my heart,

which now overflows in a shower of blessing

from me to you.

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Showers of Blessing

There shall be showers of blessing:
This is the promise of love;
There shall be seasons refreshing,
Sent from the Savior above.

Refrain:
Showers of blessing,
Showers of blessing we need:
Mercy-drops round us are falling,
But for the showers we plead.

2 There shall be showers of blessing,
Precious reviving again;
Over the hills and the valleys,
Sound of abundance of rain. [Refrain]

3 There shall be showers of blessing;
Send them upon us, O Lord;
Grant to us now a refreshing,
Come, and now honor Thy Word. [Refrain]

4 There shall be showers of blessing:
Oh, that today they might fall,
Now as to God we’re confessing,
Now as on Jesus we call! [Refrain]

5 There shall be showers of blessing,
If we but trust and obey;
There shall be seasons refreshing,
If we let God have His way. [Refrain]