Rainy Day People

In 1975 Gordon Lightfoot released a song with some of my favorite lyrics:

           Rainy day people always seem to know when it’s time to call.

           Rainy day people don’t talk, they just listen till they’ve heard it all.

           Rainy day lovers don’t lie when they tell you they’ve been down like you.

           Rainy day people don’t mind if you cry a tear or two.

If you sometimes have a “rainy day,” try to remember that God loves you, and he cares about what’s happening in your life.  He knows when you are sad or lonely or depressed. And he knows exactly why you are sad or depressed, and understands why you would feel that way.

God does not want us to be overcome with sadness to the point where we lose our effectiveness or the ability to serve him. “God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble” (Ps. 46:1). When we are burdened with cares, he teaches us to cast them upon him, because he cares for us (1 Pet. 5:7). To “cast our cares” upon him is to turn them over to him, to release them to him for solution. It does not require us to stop being concerned, but to stop allowing such concerns to cripple us.  Stop allowing those concerns to mire you down in sorrow, and consume your God-given energy and strength.

How does God help us when we are having a “rainy day?” He may do so by sending a “rainy day person” into our life. Someone who may give us a smile, a word of encouragement, an exhortation from his word. You have seen how this works if you have ever received a phone call or visit from a brother or sister or other loved one just exactly when you needed it most. Or maybe you have, quite literally, forced yourself to go to the assembly of the saints, and been greatly uplifted, thankful afterwards that you went. There are a lot of “rainy day people” in our assemblies.

           If you get lonely, all you really need is that rainy day love.

           Rainy day people all know there’s no sorrow they can’t rise above.

           Rainy day lovers don’t love any others, that would not be kind.

           Rainy day people know how it all hangs on a peace of mind.

Perhaps you have some “rainy day people” in your life. If you do, be thankful for them. They are a gift from God. They remind us that God loves us, that he cares about us, and does not want to see us hurting.

It is easy sometimes to forget that God is always with us, because we do not physically see him. But yet, we see him all around us if we will only look. We see his love in the care and compassion of our brethren. We see God’s concern for our welfare in the kind-hearted people he sends into our lives. Whether they know it or not, these people are tools, influenced and motivated by the word of God, which is living and active in our world, (Heb. 4:12).

Are you a rainy day person? Look around you at the lives touching yours. Some are struggling. Is there something you can say or do to encourage the faint-hearted, the weak, the sad, the depressed? Is there some way you can remind them that God loves them? Maybe someone very close to you needs you now. They need what only you can provide. God can use you as a tool or instrument of his love if you let him, but only if you are receptive to God’s will and his influence in your life.

If you are one of those people who never has a “rainy day,” then more power to you. But I suspect practically everyone who reads this article can relate to those who have their dark and dreary days. You know that there are times when even the strongest people around you need a hand. They need a word of encouragement, a reminder that God loves them, and so do you.

Being a “rainy day person” is really just another way of saying that we practice Christian love and kindness to others. As Christians, we are focused more and more on our Lord and upon others, and less upon ourselves. 

“And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, trying him: Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law? And he said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second like unto it is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments the whole law hangeth, and the prophets.” (Mt. 22:35-40)

-by Robert C. Veil, Jr.