Prayer in a Time of Drought

Texas is currently enduring one of the three worst droughts in our recorded history. We’ve had only one significant rainfall since February. The greens of our native South Texas plants tend toward muted and dusky olive shades anyway, but this year our world looks like one of those artsy films where they suck out about 50% of the color.

If things continue like this, July and August are not going to be much fun.

The drought is only an inconvenience to me. Our water pressure is low, but the faucet is still flowing. My yard is struggling a bit because of stringent watering restrictions, but that’s a minor concern in the scheme of things. I have High Calling Network friends who are farmers. I’m thinking of Ann Voskamp and Jennifer Dukes Lee, specifically. They don’t live in Texas, but knowing how their lives are tied to the weather has given me a greater sense of compassion for the farmers and ranchers in my state.

Lots of religious people in Texas are praying for rain these days, along with some who aren’t generally so inclined but are reconsidering the proposition in light of current circumstances.

The first thing I want to tell you...

is that I’ll pray for anything. If a kid wants me to pray that she finds her missing flip-flops, I am 100% in on that prayer. Absolutely. Not a moment of doubt or hesitation. Prayer is a spiritual discipline for me. So all that business of trying to figure out if and how prayer works is not what I’m about these days. At some point along the way, the idea of little me sitting on our fuzzy planet trying to figure out what an infinite mind will or will not be involved with became kind of funny to me.

The second thing I want to tell you...

is that I consider creation to be as sacred as prayer. That means our planet has its own needs. Plates must shift, meaning earthquakes and tsunamis happen. If you and I happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, we might get hurt. The planet is a kind of living organism itself. It has yearly cycles and larger cycles that last for centuries. Jesus said that the rain falls on the just and the unjust. I take that to mean that drought happens to the just and the unjust as well.

The ways of our planet are not always convenient for the creatures on it, to put it mildly.

What I’m saying is the same humility that brings me to prayer also helps me accept that everything does not revolve around my comfort or even my survival.

Yes, I’m admitting that some things are even bigger than Texas!

You know you’re finding a sweet spot of existence with all of this when you learn to be okay with how small you are. And when you learn to enjoy being small. Most of the decisions - like when and where the rain falls - are way above my pay grade. I take comfort in that.

I am a small boy in this big world. When my people hurt because there is no rain, it is a blessing to know that I don’t have to have any grand answers. I’m only called to humbly offer my prayers.

Abba, daddy, God. We could really use some rain.

Image by Kelly Sauer. Used with permission. Post by Gordon Atkinson.