Don't Listen to the Drips

It's raining today in North Texas, just one of those slow, steady, all-day, beautiful rain showers. It is so incredibly relaxing listening to the rain as it falls to the ground outside my window where I am working.

I love the sound of a good summer rainstorm. But I hate the sound of a single drip. You know the sound. Like a leaky faucet with a steady drip that slowly pounds its way into your brain until the only sound you can hear is that drip....drip....drip...drip...drip. Somehow, the individual little drips drown out everything else. You cannot focus on anything other that the sound of the drips.

Funny how the individual drips can be so annoying, so aggravating, so contentious, while lots of drips together can be soothing, relaxing, and refreshing. It's all about focus. Do you focus on the sound of the single drip or the melody of all the drops of rain together.

The people in our lives, and the voices we allow to speak into our lives are often like those drips. The Bible says that a nagging wife annoys like a constant dripping (Prov. 19:13). Really, I think you can extend that verse to other voices of criticism in our lives. The critics, the naysayers, the discouragers, and complainers in our lives are like a constantly dripping faucet. They continue to hound us, continue to make their voice heard, continue to drip...drip...drip...drip...drip. They wear us down. They cause us to be distracted, discouraged, and frustrated. They demand our attention. And pretty soon, all we hear is the sound of the drips. Our focus gets off of other, more important things because we are so annoyed and overcome by the dripping.

But there are a lot of other voices in our lives. People who love us and encourage us and support us. People who speak words of love and affirmation into our lives. People who instruct us, challenge us, inspire us, pray for us. People whose drips do not annoy us, but who come together to form a beautiful symphony of raindrops that are relaxing, soothing, supportive, encouraging.

Really, we have a choice in life. Will we focus on the drips, the few individual voices that when heard alone, listened to in isolation, can annoy and even destroy us? Will we give more attention to the few voices of criticism? Or will we make the choice to listen to the beautiful symphony of raindrops God gives us in life? Will we choose to focus on the sound of applauding raindrops in our life?

I know I have been guilty of doing the former often in my life. In fact, it is one of my greatest weaknesses. I listen to the individual drops, focusing on the annoying voices of a couple of individuals, instead of listening to the crowd who cheers me on. But I would much rather listen to the rain. So that is what I am going to do. Focus on the beauty of the many instead of the sometimes annoyance of the few.

Don't listen to the drips in your life. Listen to the beautiful rain that God brings into our lives.