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1 Kings 18:42-45 – Praying through the Bible #113 – A Prayer for Rain
One of the most famous American droughts was the Dust Bowl from 1931 to 1939. In 2012, 42% of the country experienced severe, extreme or exceptional drought, the largest such percentage since the mid-1950s. The 2002 drought in Colorado brought the lowest water flow that the state had seen in 300 years. The 1988 North American drought cost an estimated $40 million in damages in the U.S. Remember any of those? Me neither. Except that last one. I remember the Dust Bowl too, but only in history books. I don’t remember the $40 million in damages in 1988, but I do remember watching TV where small towns were having prayer meetings. That Wednesday night, I gently chastised the congregation for not praying for rain. That night we did. That weekend it rained. Almost any farmer knows more about faith than almost any scholar. Faith is not learned from books, it is learned The Book; and from life, hard life, and hard times. A friend of mine, whose father was a pig farmer, said he didn’t have enough faith to be a crop farmer! Waiting on those rains takes faith.
Israel’s famine had lasted 3 ½ years. After the Battle on Mt. Carmel, Elijah prays, and it rains. Ask most people, “Did it rain miraculously?” and they will probably say, “Yes.” If they mean it rained by God’s power, then that is correct. If they mean God suspended the laws of nature to make it rain, check the story again.
Elijah bows down to the ground, and puts his face between his knees to pray (1 Kings 18.42). He commands his servant, “Go up and look toward the sea.” The answer is, “There is nothing.” Seven times Elijah says, “Go back.” Finally, on the seventh try, the servant says, “There’s a cloud as small as a man’s hand coming from the sea” (18.44).
Does the rain fall from a clear blue sky? No. Does it fall immediately after the prayer? Again, no. It begins like rain begins. Clouds form from evaporation, this time over water, starting out small, and becoming bigger until the clouds become too heavy and rain falls. Nothing out of the ordinary, except it is by answered prayer.
Rightly so, people marvel at miracles. Our God is the God of miracles and of nature because He created it by miracle and sustains it by His natural law. He even interferes for His purposes. He caused the drought, and causes the rain. God even gives us a power more wondrous than we know: The right to pray; and the right to be answered.
After asking the congregation to pray for rain, a good brother gently chastised me, “God doesn’t work that way anymore.” Well if God cannot work within His own rules of nature, then why do we pray? Why pray for healing, jobs, rain for crops, or anything? Funny thing happened; it rained and rained and rained. The son of that man, who was at that time unfaithful, said, “Perry, you can stop praying now.”
Prayer Challenge: Be amazed, pray on our knees, at God working within His realm.
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