Praying for the Weather, Personal Testimonies

LittleDrummerBoy

Senior Member
I've learned that praying for the weather is a simple subset of asking for my daily bread.

Last week, we were in New Orleans, a trip originally planned for my wife's business trip. A week or two prior, my wife and I became convicted that the Lord wanted us to make some messianic music videos at the Holocaust Memorial. My wife prayerfully selected five songs corresponding to five unique messages the artistic memorial provides. We had been practicing a number already, but we focused on preparing these five. We arrived in Louisiana on Monday, seemingly with plenty of time to make the videos, but we needed to depart by Friday for commitments elsewhere. It was a cold, windy, rainy week. By Thursday afternoon, it was clear our last chance would be Friday afternoon. So we prayed that it would stop raining, not be too cold or windy, and that the riverboat next to the Memorial would stop playing that loud and awful carnival music. As you can see from my recent video posts, the videos were limited by our own talents, but not by the weather.

Returning to Georgia, I've been frustrated by the recent weather that resulted in cancelling a fishing trip and interfering with a number of my bike rides. For health reasons, I try and ride 40 miles a week, and hadn't ridden during our time in New Orleans. I was putting in some time on the elliptical, but it's not the same. I finally squeezed in a short ride during a break in the rain yesterday, and during that ride, I was reminded of our conversations here and finally remembered to pray for another break in the rain today. Just got back from a very nice 8.5 mile ride, even though the forecast had been calling for rain all day today for most of the week.

I suspect that we often go without, not having because we're not asking, as James 4 says.

 

LittleDrummerBoy

Senior Member
I often summarize my decade as a farmer after graduation as "learning to pray for rain." School was very cerebral, and although I worked hard both studying the laws of nature in school, as well as fulfilling the great commission, I had lost touch with the great outdoors and my redneck heritage during my college years.

The church in Ohio the Lord called us to was located on a 100 acre farm property, and I began volunteering increasingly on farm projects under the guidance of one of the elders. Shortly after he passed away, the ministry leadership asked me to lead the farming efforts on the property which were geared toward some specific ministry purposes. The property had a vineyard, apple and pear orchards, and about 20 acres the leadership wanted to put into sweet corn that first year.

Farming in the midwest has many weather-related challenges. The first I encountered was waiting for the ground to dry enough to work in the spring, getting the plowing, tilling, and planting done quickly to get the corn in, and then hoping and praying for rain in the dryer summer months while the corn and other crops were needing water to sustain their growth at key times.

There was a long dry spell in June and July that first summer, and the crops were in danger of failing. Since I hadn't really learned to pray for rain yet, I raised the cash and labor to install an irrigation system drawing water from a stream that ran across the property and the crops succeeded. Building that thing was difficult in the summer heat, and operating it was labor intensive. But at least the ministry goals were accomplished.

It was my habit to read through the Bible once each year, and I began to take notice of all the Scriptures relating to farming and especially rain. I learned about the sweat of man's brow, thorns and thistles, and that Yahweh gives the rain. I learned that God gave man dominion over the earth. I learned that God's word is likened to the rain and snow, which are nearly always reckoned as a blessing in Scripture:

Isaiah 55:10-11 As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

I learned that part of obeying Jesus' instruction to pray for our daily bread included praying for the rain to stop when needed to plant or harvest and praying for the rain to fall when needed to grow the crops. I learned that as the duly appointed farmer on the property, I could go boldly into the throne room of God the Father and ask for what I needed to carry out my appointed ministry. I learned that the most common cause of drought in Scripture was idolatry, and that sometimes, God wants the righteous to pray not to be caught up when the wicked are spanked. And I learned that Scripture says God can send rain on one field and withhold it from another. If God was smiting other midwest farmers who called for pagan indian rain dances, the land I farmed did not need to be spanked also.

But most of all, I learned to pray for rain. Sometimes, a sole, silent petition was all that was needed. Sometimes, I needed to look to heaven, raise my hands, and cry out in prayer for rain. Sometimes, I needed to ask the local body, or even the elders to join me in prayer for rain to succeed in the ministry work to which I was appointed. Sometimes, I needed to evaluate my life and my home and even the farm property for signs and items with idolatrous or occult attachments and seek repentance and cleansing. But the irrigation system was never needed in the 10 farm seasons that followed, and it fell into disrepair and was eventually dismantled.

One event stands out. The church frequently had a church picnic in July, and it had been rained out the year before. (Other than prayer, planning a church picnic can be effective in bringing rain.) In the Wednesday night prayer meeting, the elders started to pray that it wouldn't rain the following weekend that the picnic was planned. Knowing that, as the elders, they probably had more authority over the property than I did, I politely stopped them at that point, reminded them of the need of rain for the farm crops, and asked instead that they pray that it would rain only at night and not on the picnic. The night before the picnic, the fields received a beautiful, soaking rain. But the day of the picnic was dry.
 
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Israel

BANNED
Were a man (such as myself) be pressed to consider any claim of salvation, it would be a marvel for him to persist in any thinking that would embrace salvation but likewise cling to doubt of God's ability in any other thing.

"Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven'; or to say, 'Get up, and pick up your pallet and walk '? Jesus asked.

It's a good question, isn't it?

If we, in any way "preach salvation" and specifically the salvation found only in the name of Jesus Christ, do we show a sort of inconsistency if, in any thinking, we imagine salvation to be less a miracle (a demonstration of God's power amongst the powerless, or where power is expressed to a limit) than anything else?

A man, such as myself, might be pressed. Pressed even to the point of believing.

This is only hard to believe:

He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

if I resist, and persist in some sort of perversity that imagines the saving of me is not already the plainest demonstration of miraculous power over a created thing that (at least to me) supersedes any and all other demonstration of such power over all other created things.

But, I am equally coming to appreciate why no man would have any desire to be a man like me, one who has spent as much time and effort seeking to convince men I have faith, as seeking no less, to prove it to God.

After all, I am just barely beginning to see I have not wanted myself at all to be "like me". Which was been the sorest of all burrs that caused a bucking against the faith that teaches "it has been made OK, for you to be you".

God help me to not be found with a false balance. An inconsistent balance.

But, that's just me.
 

Artfuldodger

Senior Member
A couple of thoughts more than beliefs;
Matthew 5:45
that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

Job 37:13
He brings the clouds to punish people, or to water his earth and show his love.

In relation to the Job verse, one person said; Instead of praying for rain, pray for why it stopped!
 

LittleDrummerBoy

Senior Member
A lot of folks in Australia prayed for "rain & repentance."


A couple of thoughts more than beliefs;
Matthew 5:45
that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.


Job 37:13
He brings the clouds to punish people, or to water his earth and show his love.

In relation to the Job verse, one person said; Instead of praying for rain, pray for why it stopped!

This quote is from the Elihu speech. I take the speeches of the three false comforters and Elihu in the Book of Job with a grain of salt. For me, being in the Bible only means it is true that the named men spoke the words to Job. I don't attribute any inspiration, authority, or wisdom to the words spoken by Elihu or the three false comforters in Job.

So the question becomes, are these tidbits of religious belief expressed by these speakers actually supported by other places in the Bible. I think this specific Elihu quote is - The flood of Genesis 6-9 supports the idea of God bringing clouds to punish people, and Acts 14:17 supports the idea of God bringing rain to show his love.

But I also recommend care in applying verses and ideas from the OT or representing ancient times to believers in the NT era. When Jesus instructs us to ask for our daily bread, I think he is opening the door and wanting us to go to God the Father with our needs. If we're not asking out of some kind of presumption that he'll provide even if we don't ask, then we may be in danger of not having because we're not asking.

"Lord, what are you willing to include in my daily bread?"
 

gordon 2

Senior Member
"Lord, what are you willing to include in my daily bread?"

I can't say I found any answers. Perhaps a neighbor with a wise heart.

But also I recommend being careful about applying verses to ideas :

"They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. "

Personally I'd rather share with a real imperfect person than with a real perfect scripture verse(s) scheme. If you have to get three verses to agree on one to declare what is the right place for a Christian's heart, I wonder if that exercise is in keeping with God's will for the heart ( His).

Jesus shared a lot of scripture with people under the law, but scripture to those not under the law, and added systems to find meaning in christian ministry, it seem to me can be overkill and negates or can frustrate the purpose of the born again heart.

What we are willing to include extra to our daily bread as to God's will... other than the knowledge of what is good and what is evil( knowing the right hand from the left hand) is in fact presumptive that even in Christ we are foreigners to His will!

When someone is witnessed to by Jesus, they know his shepherd voice and when they read scripture they seek him and not agreements as man certifies agreements. And if the heart be formed in this... it is by our Lord's heart, for it is to his heart new believers cling to. As we get on with the race we often forget this.
 
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LittleDrummerBoy

Senior Member
"Lord, what are you willing to include in my daily bread?"

I can't say I found any answers. Perhaps a neighbor with a wise heart.

A neighbor with a wise heart recently pointed out to me words of Jesus suggesting that miraculous healing was reckoned as part of the children's bread. (Matthew 15:26)

What we are willing to include extra to our daily bread as to God's will... other than the knowledge of what is good and what is evil( knowing the right hand from the left hand) is in fact presumptive that even in Christ we are foreigners to His will!

Scripture says, if we are transformed, we can know God's will:

"Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will." Romans 12:2

My personal habit is first to pray for wisdom and God's will in a circumstance, and then to pray for the grace, ability, and resources to carry that out. I know it is God's will for believers to make disciples as described in Matthew 28. But there are details regarding "who, what, when, where, and how" for which additional guidance may be needed.
 
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