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# Running in the Rain, Chasing after the Storm
- URL: https://brewedfaith.ca/running-in-the-rain-chasing-after-the-storm/
- Published: 2022-10-21T18:50:21.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-14T04:50:31.000Z
- Author: Tim Gibb
- Tags: Leadership, Soul Care, faith, Following Jesus, hardship, Jesus, pain, Relationships, wisdom, life's storms, #Migrated-1786683019158, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-08-14 00:50

We have had some amazing rain storms in the past month! One of those rain storms just pelted our region and left everything soaking wet. No, we don't often get really bad storms in Southwestern Ontario, certainly not like the ones that we see around the world, but the experience that we had that night was far more than a simple rain storm. 

It was a dance of lightning that was so spectacular, we stood in silence and awe. It was an experience of God’s power and creativity right there before our eyes. 

A dance in the far skies lit up the darkness in incredible ways. the crashes of lightning split and twisted along the skies as if dancing one bolt with another.

It was a clear reminder of the things that we need. It wasn't that long ago that I sat and read our family devotional around the table that explained the importance of lightning to the earth. Lightning does something magical, it produces and supports a sustainable atmosphere and naturally fertilizes the earth, among many other remarkable things. Without lightning life on earth would not survive. We need lightning as much as we want sunny days for the beach, and we need the rain that nourishes the soil and causes the plants to grow.

These storms are important. They are necessary. And I want to be able to run in the rain. I want to chase the storm. Just as the buffalo of the plains would run into the storm that approached, I want to shake off the fear of what is inevitable and run through what brings life.

The storms in our lives bring about the greatest opportunities for growth. Our greatest struggles, those times in our lives that cause us the greatest pain can also be the greatest reminder of our humanness and need for Jesus. They will (if we allow) become the greatest source of strength and character-building materials of our lives. 

You see, we will grow through what we go through. There is no other way. 

The pain of defeat on the ice, the field or the board room amounts to the greatest opportunity to grow in perseverance and wisdom. The struggle of loss will be there for others to glean grace and compassion from. Your weakness and struggle with sickness and pain will be the inspiration that others can tap into. All because we went through it and learned - we grew. 

If we allow it, the storm will help us grow:

***We will grow in wisdom***. As we look into our world filled with storms, walking and running through these opportunities will help us to lean on God and in doing so, we discover that it is His wisdom, not our own that will see us through. We grow in wisdom, but that only happens when we release and let go and allow God to direct our paths. 

The book of Proverbs is clear, the beginning of wisdom is an awe/fear of God – an understanding of who we are in light of the greatness and eternal otherness of who He is. And it is in the Proverbs that we learn to lean on His wisdom not our own understanding – that is how our paths will find their course and rightness, as they follow after Him. 

***We grow in compassion and grace***. Isn’t it true that when you have gone through something so difficult that you are changed through the process, you become empathetic to others who are processing the same reality? I know that it has been true in my life and ministry. I see others going through difficulty and I want to hug them, console them and pray with them. I want them to see they are loved and cared for, that they are seen and their pain is acknowledged. 

When we go through hardship and pain, and when we know Jesus, our first godly response is to be compassionate with others who are feeling the brokenness of their own storm. Our storms equalize and balance us, so we are building into others the grace and compassionate needed to begin to run through the rain as we have. 

Grace finds its way because we have been given it through Jesus. It is through this beautiful reflection of grace in our lives by Him who Loves, that we can see it amplified in the lives of others through us, through the storms of life we have run into. When we begin to run through our storms, we begin to understand how hard it is and compassion grows immensely for those that have gone through trials and storms and those who will go through them as we are. 

***We grow in relationship***. We grow, because if we do not our relationships die. It is that simple. When we run into the storms and refuse to take others along with us, we often lose them all together. Here is the reality, when we go it alone, we tell the people around us that they aren’t helpful or useful to us in our hardship (and that they won’t be able to handle it if they come up against it themselves), we tell people we don’t need anyone else (even though we desperately do), and worst of all we tell people that they simply aren’t that important to us – they are dispensable and replaceable for a model of friend or family member that is better suited to “this stage of life we are in” (even though no one is dispensable or replaceable!).

No, when we run into the storms of this life, we don’t go it alone, we bring the tribe with us. It is how they will grow with us, it is how we will grow through it and it is how our relationships will not only survive but thrive. We ALL go through storms – don’t think for a second you are the only one going through what you are dealing with right now. We are in this together. Your relationships, my relationships, they ALL matter. And if we are wise (see above), we will grow in relationships not allow them to die away.

We grow in our understanding of ourselves. When we really take God at his word. When we really take wisdom from God seriously. When we engage with our relationships, especially our relationship with God, we will understand ourselves better. We will be able to see what we are able to accomplish, what we are able to push through, what we are able to live through. We will see how God has wired us and worked in us, shaped us and formed us to be like Jesus. We will, in the quiet, be able to engage with ourselves because we are seeing the one God loves and cherishes and designed to be unique and beautiful. 

When we engage with the hardships of life and allow ourselves to see, feel and experience what that entails we are able to come to know in a greater way the soul in us, the eternal person that God has placed on this earth for this time and place. 

There is something extraordinary about that. In allowing the inevitable storms to be used by God to shape us and form us, to become mirrors of ourselves that are so often blocked by the material world of busyness and profit around us. 

I want to chase the storm. I want to run in the rain and see myself grow into the man that God is making me to be. Will you chase the storm with me? Will run with me - growing with me? Where is Jesus growing you today? Look for it. It's there! 

Run in the rain and chase the storm.