Praying For Rain

The western boundary of the farm is a branch that is as crooked as a slithering snake.  In my neck of the woods a branch is a term which means about the same thing as a creek, or a stream.  I call the branch on the edge of the farm "The Runoff Branch" because it depends not on a natural source of water, but upon the rain which runs off higher ground.  When it rains, it is full and flowing.  When there is no rain such as is the case in these drought stricken days, there is only dry caked dirt where water is supposed to be.  

The other day when I drove over the branch and saw it dried up, I thought of the prophet Elijah.  The story of his great battle with King Ahab and the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel began three years earlier "by the Wadi Cherith."  (I Kings 17:3).  Elijah lived by it, drank water from it, and ate the meat and bread brought to him by ravens.  Before he went there, he said to Ahab the King, "As the Lord the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my Word."  (I Kings 17:1).  Each day Elijah drank from that stream, but there came that time when "the wadi dried up, because there was no rain in the land."  (I Kings 17:7).   

The epic battle between Elijah and the prophets of Baal ended with the defeat of those prophets and Elijah bowed down with his face between his knees.  Eight times he told his servants to look toward the sea and finally they reported "a little cloud no bigger than a person's hand rising out of the sea." (I Kings 18:44).  In a short time, heavy rain fell upon that land parched from a three year drought.  In the New Testament the Apostle James wrote, "Elijah...prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain...Then he prayed again, and the heavens gave rain and the earth yielded its harvest." (James 5:17-18).  Farmers around the farm are facing a terrible drought.  Churches and communities are gathering to pray for rain.  May heavy life giving rains fall once again on dry thirsty land.