Make It Rain

     Geeky confession: I love the show Quantum Leap. If you don’t know what it is, first of all, shame on you (just kidding), but here’s the basics: it’s a sci-fi show about Sam Beckett who, due to a physics project, "leaps" to different people within his lifetime to fix what has gone wrong. Sam is accompanied by Al, his best friend who is a hologram, visible only to Sam. They’re a perfect duo: Al is a cigar-smoking womanizer (whose reasons for being emotionally stunted are revisited in several episodes that make me sob), but is completely loyal to Sam, even if he thinks his best friend is a tad bit too idealistic. Sam, meanwhile, is the ultimate hero: selfless, kind, generous...he can sing, dance, and if you don’t believe me, please take a gander at this song, and you’re welcome.

     Ahem. Back to the real issue at hand.

     One of the reasons that I love Quantum Leap is that it isn’t afraid to pose philosophical questions. Agree or disagree with the conclusions, at least they ask the questions. And one that the show revisits several times is quite profound: could God be in control of Sam’s leaps? 

     That question is at the forefront of “A Single Drop of Rain.” In Sam’s “real life,” he was raised as a farmer in Indiana. In this “leap,” he ends up inhabiting the body of a two-bit shyster who claims that he can "make it rain" to this tiny, drought-ridden country town. Sam, ever the good guy, hates this person. He hates how this person is peddling false hope and promising these good farmers that he can do the impossible-- make it rain. Sam is convinced that, somehow, in some way he can't foresee, he has to make it rain, or else these people will be stuck in a drought and their lives will be ruined.

     Al, though, isn't too convinced. See, in the original timeline, the man that Sam now inhabits ran off with his brother's wife. Al is convinced that all Sam needs to do-- what seems so inauspicious to Sam-- is simply make sure that the guy's brother and wife stay together. That she never runs away with the two-bit shyster.

     Sam can't believe his mission is that simple. He is sure that he is to make it rain, that he has to somehow has to do the impossible.

     Of course, Sam can't.

     So he pours himself into building a machine that will somehow make it rain. He’s a scientist. He’s brilliant. He invented a project that let him leap through time, after all! Using his strength and his intelligence, he’ll right this wrong and make it rain. And Al? Well, Al is no help. He’s insistent that all Sam has to do is fix the marriage of the shyster’s brother and wife. But that can’t be Sam’s mission. It’s too trivial. It’s not important. Sam’s job is to make it rain.

     But, see, there’s this thing that happens when we try to do the impossible all on our own merits. We often find ourselves at the end of our ropes, drowning in everything that we feel we must accomplish but are unequipped to do. And Sam reaches that point. Everything he’s tried to do has failed and backfired. He goes out to walk in the field, alone, crushed, a failure. He can’t help these people. He can’t do what they need most.

     He’s broken.

     And as he’s walking in this field, he starts to pray.

     This isn’t your typical prayer. Sam is frustrated. He believes God has brought him here to do the impossible, that God’s put too much on him. Sam unleashes his anger on God, confused, lost, and seeking the answer. He ends the prayer like this: “I don't know how to do this one. I mean, You gotta help me…You make it rain. You hear me? You make it rain!”

     Sam goes home.

     He gives in.

     He finally helps the brother and his wife make up.

     He does his part, by, ironically, getting into a fight with the brother and pointing out how he's neglecting his wife, being rude to her, and how he needs to straighten up and actually love her. Of course, the husband doesn't like this. They get into a fist-fight.

     But it works.

     Everyone makes up.

     And just as Sam has completed his mission, it rains.

     God comes through.

     He made it rain.

     Isn’t this a wonderful example of our lives?

     We think we know exactly what to do. We try and solve the world’s problems, we try and take everything upon ourselves as if it all depends on us. On what we can do, on our skills, on our finite minds. We know what we want to happen, and we plot out a path to get from A to B. And, even if we don’t mean to, sometimes we can remove God from the equation. We may still say, “God is in charge,” or “God will come through,” but we act as if He’s not going to do anything.

     And when the troubles come, whatever struggles we go through, how do we respond? Do we plod on with our own strength, or do we trust that God will come through?

     That may be fine and dandy, you think, but nothing will get done if I’m static. If I don’t move at all. 

     And you’re exactly right.

     God didn’t call Sam to just plop down and watch things play out. No, God gave Sam an active part in His plan, just as He gives us. All He asks us is to move forward, to do the next right thing, the next thing He has planned for us. God gives us things we can do, while He works on the things we can’t.

     The simple truth: we can't make it rain. Sam can't make it rain. But God didn't ask him to, either. Just like God doesn't ask us.

     Whenever you're feeling stressed, when things are spinning out of your control, and you know what needs to be done but you're unable to follow through, do what Sam does. Pray. Scream. Beg. Argue. God can handle it. He wouldn't be God if He wasn't big enough to handle our questions and arguments. And through it all, He's just whispering, "It's okay. I'm here. I'll make it rain. Just do what you can do. That's all I ask."

     And then, at the end of the day, do what God calls you to do, the small, the insignificant, the simple breath of a prayer where you say: “Okay, God. I believe. Forgive me of my unbelief.”

     Because God makes it rain. Not us.