On a Warm Summer's Evening - A Prayer for Rain (2013)

Oh Lord, we are a funny people,
        with an awful sense of humor.
By free will we move to the wilderness;
        or born here, we decide to stay. *
And yet, oh God, how we complain:
        “The lakes are low, stock tanks too.
Hasn’t rained in weeks, by God,
        just what are we going to do?”
We must annoy you to no end,
        like Israelites in the wilderness.

Around your world, famines are deadly,
        killing millions made in your image.
Lacking good land management,
        without wells to reach life-giving water;
ruled by power-mongers who don’t care,
        siphoning off millions in foreign aid.
Oh God, claim these people as your own;
        bless every effort to drill wells.
Enrich their barren soil with Eden fertility,
        and send the rains in their season.

Droughts plague us too—
        even with all of our knowledge,
        and our high-tech equipment.
We can’t control the rain or seasons,
        though we would like too.

But we are not gods. We are not you;
        and if scripture teaches us anything,
it’s the danger of over-reaching:
        trying to be you, instead of trusting you.

So Lord, what a delight when we see
        lightning and hear distant thunder.
Raindrops slowing splattering the sidewalk,
        racing each other, faster and faster!

Oh Lord, how amazing:
        To watch my rain gauge,
                mark one inch, two inches, then three.
        To see my thermometer,
                in a free fall from 96 to 66 degrees.
        To watch the storm on radar
                move over our city;
        to the farms and fields all around.

So before we forget,
        or complain that we need more.

Thank you, Lord.
        Thank you for refreshing the ground.
        Thank you for giving water to drink.
Thank you, Lord, for the rain.

Amen

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* Author’s note: I live in Abilene, TX, where the average rainfall is 24.4 inches and the local ranchers refer to ponds as stock tanks.

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