Pray For Rain

It’s hot.  It’s dry.  It’s nasty.  It’s scary.  Of course, it’s worse in other parts of the country, so I guess I should be thankful.  We’ve had a few fires crop up here and there in the area, some coming close to neighborhoods, one even caused by an Idiot (excuse me, a morally challenged individual) who shot a bottle rocket out of his car into a dry grass field.  But, still, it’s not as bad as Colorado and some other places.  Pray for rain!

But here’s what I’ve been thinking about.  Lately, it’s the thing on everyone’s mind.  The raging fires across the land, the record breaking heat, the severe deficit in rainfall, the damage to crops and animals and so on.  And all of this is indeed bad.  It’s nasty and scary as I said.  We should be thinking about this, and yes, praying for rain.

Yet it amazes me that these same folks can look at the dry and brittle landscape of their own souls, the life sucking spiritual drought in some of our churches, the real nasty and scary future our lost and hellbound neighbors are facing, and…nothing.  Doesn’t seem to be nearly as big a concern for us; not nearly the “hot” topic of conversation (pardon the pun).  We don’t seem anywhere close to being as motivated to pray for a solution to this drought as the other.  Why are we not praying for rain?

One of my favorite songs (I know, I say that about a lot of songs, but what can I say, I’m a musicaholic) is from a band called Day of Fire.  Ironic, don’t you think?  Anyway, it’s a song called Rain Song from their first release in 2004.  Here are the lyrics:

Bring rivers in this wasteland

Clouds into this sky

Bring springs of life into the wells that have been run dry

Rise up in this city

Gather in this light

Fall down on your people

Your glory and your life

Rain, Lord we thirst for water

Rain, We are desert Land

Rain, On your sons and daughters

Rain, Bring your rain again

Speak dreams into this water

And vision to this land

That oceans be divided

And bring forth life again

Rise up in this city

Gather in this light

Fall down on your people

Your glory and your life

CHORUS

Let the tide roll in

Washing over our lives

Let your water fall again

Bring rivers in this wasteland

Clouds into the sky

CHORUS

Bring your rain again

Let your water fall down

Bring your rain again now

(repeat)

As I think of our desperate need for rain, for an end to the scorching heat and drought conditions, I can’t help but think of our even greater need for Christ and for His power to be poured out in our lives.  We’ve grown too satisfied with dry hearts.  We don’t share the cry of David in Psalm 63:1 - O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

We need to realize that David wasn’t just using poetic license.   This is a true cry of the soul, a genuine recognition of our desperate need for God, a real life understanding of the dryness of our hearts and our need for God to rain into our lives; it’s a prayer for rain.  

I hope we are all seriously praying for those hit hardest by the hot, dry conditions and the wildfires.  Truly these are tragic things.  Pray for rain.  Pray God would have mercy and send showers of blessing in the form of actual showers on these barren wastelands.

I also hope we are seriously praying for ourselves, our churches, our nation, and our world.  Truly we are in tragic times.  Pray for rain.  Pray God would have mercy and send showers of blessing in the form of His grace, His power, His enlivening Spirit onto the barren wastelands of our hearts.  

Now, for you listening pleasure, and hopefully you’re edification, here is this wonderful song: