Rain Call

Jeremiah 33:3, “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.”

When I started this post several days ago, it was raining outside. We are in the month of December. Traditionally it’s supposed to snow. Especially in Indiana and during the wintery month of December. Yet our Heavenly Father has his own idea of the season of Winter so he wants it to rain.

I woke up, started the Keurig, and sat in my cozy spot to read my Bible and have my morning devotions. A daily ritual. Yet as the other day when it was raining I wasn’t paying attention to the rain. It was December 28th and I had not received my word for the upcoming new year. I read and reread the Bible just in case it was there and I hadn’t been paying attention. A daily ritual as well.

Sunday. December 29th. I went to serve with my church in the ministry God has placed me. A dear sister shared the same with me. God had not given her a word for 2025 either. We discussed that the last seven years, since I moved back to Kokomo from West Lafayette, that our Heavenly Father has given me a word for the upcoming new year. It is this word combined with scripture that usually defines the year. In the past he didn’t always do this. I was either blind or just too preoccupied to see what he was trying to tell me. Another ritual yet one which he is trying to correct.

Then December 30th arrived. I had a somewhat fitful night plagued with sleep combined with times of prayer. Our Lord has had me do this many times with a certain person or ministry to pray over in the night. This time I was so concerned that no word or scripture from my Heavenly Father had not arrived it kept me awake. I thought about just picking up the Bible to see if it could be found. Not a bad idea, but I knew that in the Lord’s time he would give it should he want to. After this last year of 2024, I’ve come to rest more in my Lord’s plan for this life. I trust him much more now than the commencement. So, with this knowledge I slept.

The morning of the 30th, I once again started my daily routine as days past. The very first verse from God’s Word was Jeremiah 33:3. I stopped and reread the passage. The word “Call” leapt off the page and hit me square in the face. As I was completing several reading plans, I moved onto the others yet “Call” kept returning for me to read the passage again. I went back and asked the Lord if this was the verse with his Word for the year 2025. Once he confirmed I noticed how 2024’s word of “Trust” was linked to 2025’s “Call”.

AD 2024 was a filled with me trusting my Lord more completely and fully. This included daily trust as well as ensuring my heart and mind was in alignment with him and his decisions. I’ve never given so much over to my Lord every day as the exiting year. It was so freeing! To know that I no longer own anything yet at the same time being a steward of what he gave me. I’ve known this in my head for years, but to live it is much more real. I don’t feel “connected” to the things that fill my spaces I inhabit. It includes my home and most importantly my heart. Those spaces where I go to live and many times sin. Nothing is worth more than the precious pearl that my Savior has become to me.

To me “Call” means my Lord is moving onto whatever he has next for me. You might say, “Well, duh.” Oh, don’t get me wrong I’m right there with you. But it’s the overwhelming comfort of trusting him to live out whatever he has next for me. A new year of calling on him knowing that he will answer all the while we have sweet peace together with this world barrages me. Nothing can seperate me from my Lord. He has my heart and it’s this heart that will follow him into whatever and wherever he wants me to go. It’s his hands and feet and his love that I want others to see. A ritual I want to perpetuate.

Grace and peace, James

*Scripture from New International Version, Biblica, 2011

*Keurig is a registered trademark of Keurig Green Mountain, Inc.

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