“The Lord shall open to you His good treasury, the heavens, to give the rain of your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hands, and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow.” Deut 28:12 (Amplified)
Geography was arguably my best subject in secondary school and this brings to mind the endless cycle of rainfall and how water is evaporated, as well as the rain-making process. The cycle begins when rain falls on land and sea. The sun then heats up the water causing vapour to rise into the air and form clouds. When enough mass of cloud has been formed, it becomes too heavy to remain suspended in air and so falls back as rain and the cycle continues. The point I want us to understand is that there can be no rainfall without the necessary evaporation of water from both land and sea. The wind also plays a significant part in that it determines where the rain will fall. In Britain, the weather pattern that brings our rain comes from the Atlantic Ocean, where the clouds are formed and driven by powerful winds to drop their cargo on our land.
The anchor passage above describes the clouds as God’s treasury. In previous days we have also learnt that prayer and praise represent good ways of opening an account and filling up our heavenly treasuries. Like it is with the physical rainfall, before we can expect to see the precipitation of God’s blessings on our land, there has to be the necessary evaporation of our earnest prayer, fasting and praise efforts here on earth. These are then carried on the current of the Holy Spirit into His holy Presence to elicit His favourable response of life-giving spiritual rain, whether it be of material blessing or spiritual revival. In other words, no prayer inevitably always equals no rain.
A cursory look at our world should be enough to convince us that the life-giving rain of God’s favour is long overdue. Thankfully, God is now alerting us to the fact that the season of His favour is once again upon us. All we need to do to is fulfil our part of the rain-making process. This involves earnestly seeking Him with all of our hearts – individually and as local congregations, as we pour out our hearts and beseech Him to send His rain. You may say, “Well we’ve been praying and praising but have yet to see any difference”. This is so because although the cloud is still forming, it is not yet heavy enough to precipitate the much awaited rainfall. So, keep praying and keep pressing into God and don’t stop until God either assures you that the battle is won or you start seeing physical evidence that your prayers have been answered.
God has promised that if we diligently seek Him, He would bless us with the rain and heal our land. 2 Chro 7:14. He has said that if we praise Him, He will cause the earth to yield her increase to us and all the people of the earth will fear Him. Ps 67:5-7. So, whatever spiritual rain cloud we make will not just fall on us, but will also be blown by His Spirit to fall on other needy parts of the world. This is the time of harvest, let us do all we can to ensure that God’s glory covers the earth like water covers the sea.
Prayer:
Lord, our land is going through a tough time of spiritual drought. We desperately need your rain to fall to cause new life to spring up and refresh us. Please enable me to be one of the army of rainmakers that are earnestly labouring in fasting and prayer and praising you in expectation of the deluge that would soon engulf our land. Impart on me the anointing for prayer in Jesus name. Amen.