Life is hard for the people in the village of Yunnan Province China. Their total livelihood is dependent on their crops of corn and rice. So when in May of 2012, a severe drought hit the area and the crops were withering panic was setting in. They were desperate and tried everything to make it rain including old superstitious practices. But all their attempts failed. They turned their fear and desperation into anger towards the five Christians that lived in the village saying that they had offended the spirits of their ancestors.
The five Christians, under growing persecution, gather together and prayed and prayed and prayed. Before very long the skies became dark and the rain fell. It came in a downpour that lasted the entire afternoon and saved the crops. Most villagers didn’t believe that God brought about the rain. But some did and it brought about a great deal of interest in and searching of God.
You can also turn to 1Kings 17-18 and read of another drought. This one brought on by a disobedient Israel. They were worshiping other gods, looking for rain. God however showed them through Elijah that He is the one true God who determines when it will rain.
So all this gets me thinking about the droughts in my own life. Those times that happen to us all when it seems that nothing is going right, nothing is going our way. It’s as if God is not meeting our needs and we just need something to go our way, we need a break. What do we do? Do we sulk to ourselves and maybe even to others? Do we try to fix everything on our own? Do we even in some ways blame God?
In these times I think the first thing we can do is stop, step back and review all the blessing that our Father has bestowed on us. Those that happened more than two thousand years ago as well as the ones He has provide in the last few days.
But also we must not ignore the lessons of these two stories I just shared. We are to reach out in prayer, earnest prayer to our all powerful God who desires to hear and to answer our pleas. We may not understand His timing or purposes in the droughts that come in our lives, but He will respond to us with His best for our lives.
Know this, that it’s through prayer that we can draw upon the power of the infinite God.
Sharing His Spirit, tRP
the Rear Pew 