The other night I awoke to persistent tapping on my bedroom windows, which I’ve learned means a storm is churning on the other side of the curtains. As my husband slept soundly, I tiptoed over to take a peek. Drops fell so big and fast I could hardly see the repair shop across the street. Sewers couldn’t swallow fast enough, and sidewalks had all but disappeared. I stood watching the water rush furiously down the street and wondered where it would stop.
I’m a light sleeper, and since childhood this has been my private midnight routine whenever storms blow through. It’s fascinating how water molecules are attracted to one another and create self-contained drops and puddles. Yet they’re also attracted to other surfaces, which is how a single droplet of water can cling to the edge of a leaf. Put many together, and water becomes a curious, unruly force making paths wherever it pleases. But really, it’s just under gravity’s spell like everything else, searching out the lowest possible dips and crevices.
That’s why I like this aerial shot of Iguazu Falls in Argentina. From here, I can see how the water skirts trees and dives over ridges in search of a place to pool. This landscape reminds me that our deficiencies are places where the Lord’s Spirit can rush in and fill us up. And that’s how I’ve always envisioned Paul’s conviction that when he is weak, he is strong (2 Corinthians 12:10). When we come to God, He promises to “continually guide [us], and satisfy [our desires] in scorched places, and give strength to [our] bones; and [we] will be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail” (Isaiah 58:11). I suspect that if we are courageous enough to trust the Lord, then being filled by His Spirit will be no less captivating and powerful than these falls.
Photograph by Charles F. Stanley
