I like what water does in validating my work. I am an excavator, a digger.
I dig and then the next hard rain proves my work to be good or bad. Since I want to do excellent work, I anxiously anticipate a hard rain after completion of a job. I have grown to appreciate this “ministry” of water, so I plan my job with the coming rain in mind.
Some people dread the rain, but I look forward to it because I want to know if I did it right!
You see, when you work with large areas of land, you want to determine the direction of the water. If you build a house, you want water to run away from the house not toward it. If you have a work area, you don’t want the water to accumulate where you are working. If you are building a road, you want it be a road, not a river. So your goal is to contour the land so the water flows in the proper direction.
And water proves I did the right thing. Water is a reality test, a fluff detector.
However, I could ignore the water test. I could determine in my own mind that I have done a great job; I could coerce others to agree with me. Or posssibly people would congratulate me on a fine job just to be nice or to flatter me. I could take pictures and write a paper describing the merits of my wonderful accomplishment. I could point toward my years of experience, college education and my status as a top operator to argue the merits of my work.
But nothing provides validation like water. A hard rain’s gonna’ come, baby, and I will find out if what I have done will stand the test or will be washed away in failure.
(Matthew 7:23-27 NCV) Then I [Jesus] will tell them clearly, ‘Get away from me, you who do evil. I never knew you.’ Everyone who hears my words and obeys them is like a wise man who built his house on rock. It rained hard, the floods came, and the winds blew and hit that house. But it did not fall, because it was built on rock. Everyone who hears my words and does not obey them is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. It rained hard, the floods came, and the winds blew and hit that house, and it fell with a big crash.
