Lot's of Rumble; Little Rain

Growing up in West Texas the one thing I somehow absorbed was a deep love of rain. It doesn't rain often in Abilene. When it does rain, it's needed. Even though I never lived on a farm, the agrarian culture surrounding me gave me that much. Out in that part of the world, people will let rain ruin a picnic, parade or even an outdoor wedding with one simple expression, "Well, we needed the rain." Rather than being nervous or scared or full of dread whenever we hear the thunder, people from West Texas anticipate the blessing of rain.

Occasionally, though we'd hear the thunder but rather than the earth soaking pounding rain that we expected we would get a simple trickle. Lot's of rumble; little rain.

Some sermons are like that. The preacher has lots of thunder and lighting. I'm not just talking about the pulpit pounding variety. Most preachers have techniques they try to use to maintain people's interest--more or less effectively (usually less). Their thunder might be humor or sentimentality or poetry or personal detail or cute stories about the preacher's children. Nothing wrong with that if what follows thunder is actually nourishing rain. The thunder needs to be a harbinger of rain otherwise it's just noise.

I find that listeners sometimes confuse the thunder for the rain. The fixate on the humor or the delivery or the personal details the preacher threw in as more than an aside. I would counsel listeners to discard the thunder and embrace the rain.