Praying for Rain & Shocked When it Happens

To those disappointed,

Have you ever noticed how we have the tendencies to pray for something once, and then give up if we don’t immediately get what we want within the next .52 milliseconds?

Better yet how many times have you prayed for something expecting God not to answer it?

For example, some days I am really tempted to pray, “God deliver me from temptation or let me hear your will clearly on such and such,” and then after two seconds of deafening silence I feel dejected.

My question to you is, “Since when has our society taught us that our prayers are a one-n-done kind of thing?”

Seriously think about it. The majority of us often feel that if we pray once and nothing happens then surely God must not have wanted that. We act as if God is a frugal, hard God, a God whom we must squeeze a miracle out of every once in awhile. We act as if God is not generous. We act almost as if we desire good things, such as miracles, more than God is willing to give them?

There’s a nice little story nestled away in 1 Kings 18:42-45 that addresses exactly our tendencies to discredit God after our first prayers seem to not work.

“So Ahab went up to eat and drink. But Elijah went up to the top of Carmel; and he crouched down on the earth and put his face between his knees. ⁴³ He said to his servant, “Go up now, look toward the sea.” So he went up and looked and said, “There is nothing.” And he said, “Go back” seven times. ⁴⁴ It came about at the seventh time, that he said, “Behold, a cloud as small as a man’s hand is coming up from the sea.” And he said, “Go up, say to Ahab, “Prepare your chariot and go down, so that the heavy shower does not stop you.’” ⁴⁵ In a little while the sky grew black with clouds and wind, and there was a heavy shower.”

Did you catch that? Elijah prayed not once, not twice, but seven times for it to rain! Imagine what would have happened if Elijah would have prayed once and then came down off of Mt. Carmel with his head held low? Elijah decided to believe that God was a God of generosity, despite seeing no results, and in turn got to experience a miracle. Oh yeah by the way, it hadn’t rained in over 3.5 years! You see God wants to give us good things (Matt 7). Sometimes though, he wants to test our faith first.

Too many times our prayers are fueled by our desires to see results, instead of our desires to see God.

I can tell you one thing for sure. If you pray out of a place of immediate expectancy, then few times will you get results. If you pray out of a sense of expecting God not to move, then you never will see God move. If all it takes is for you to pray once before you quit, then maybe you should invest more of your time in strengthening your faith.

Maybe if we prayed more like Elijah, we would see God work miraculously.

You can pray.

You can see things happen

The question isn’t whether God will move, the question is rather do you trust that God will move even when you see no immediate results?

Remember God doesn’t act on our time, we act on His.

Merely,

Chris Gerac

“The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” James 5:16, NIV