Praying for rain

  

When you're on an extended outdoor adventure - sleeping in tents, hiking, cooking outdoors, floating on a river - you kind of hope for good weather. Dealing with rain and wind creates significant complications. For those who believe in prayer, it can feel appropriate to pray for good weather - for the rain to bypass or delay, for winds to be mild, for temperatures to be comfortable.

Normally those kinds of thoughts can be appropriate. But in our current situation in the western US, we are in a severe multi-year drought, desperately in need of rain. We've been encouraged by religious and government leaders alike to pray for MORE rain!

I've sometimes imagined the dilemma God must face when half the people are praying for rain and half are praying for no rain. This scenario is not unique to our current situation. Often a farmer may be pleading for rain to sustain his crops, but at the same time the family of a young bride desperately wants clear weather for their outdoor reception. We like things to turn out for our greatest personal convenience.

It's interesting to ponder why we pray, and how we should pray. The "Bible Dictionary" teaches, "Prayer is the act by which the will of the Father and the will of the child are brought into correspondence with each other. The object of prayer is not to change the will of God but to secure for ourselves and for others blessings that God is already willing to grant but that are made conditional on our asking for them." Those are key insights.

We often pray for God's will to be done, and that applies to a time of great need for rain, such as we currently have. But this week, when storms were brewing on the horizon of the area where we were exploring, I felt that instead of praying for the wind and rain to hold off, perhaps I should pray for wisdom to be prepared for the storm if it came, and to make the best of the situation.

In our current time of need, we might also consider a different approach - perhaps we should pray for help in learning to take better care of the precious resource of water that is given to us. We can learn to conserve, to prioritize, to reuse and recycle, to avoid pollution - many aspects of the bigger picture!

I #GiveThanks for the gift of water, for the gift of prayer, and for the blessing of a God who listens as we ponder carefully and open our hearts in sincerity.