Do any of the worthless idols of the nations bring rain? Do the skies themselves send down showers? No, it is you, O LORD our God. Therefore our hope is in you, for you are the one who does all this. (Jeremiah 14:22, NIV)
One common question has followed me most everywhere I have traveled this year. When people find out I am from Central California, they ask about the drought: “How are you getting along?” And, because they are golfers: “Is there any water for the courses?”
There actually is water for the courses, because so many have their own wells and the government has not been quick to regulate pumps on private land (though we are told this is coming). Still, the superintendents have been judicious, and many non-essential areas have “gone golden,” we’ll say. Now, too, there have been showers in recent weeks and the scorching summer has left. Maybe we’re past the worst of it.
Maybe.
As people who walk in the world, there are far more maybes than we fess up to. After all, it’s nice to be in control. When we cannot dictate the circumstances, then we regulate our responses: It’ll be fine. We’ll get through.
The truth is, we don’t know. The climatologists tell us El Niño is building in the Pacific Ocean. This phenomenon has historically produced wet winters in our part of the world. That would be nice. But rainfall can also be a function of geography, and should the clouds skirt us or pass over before emptying their waters, we may be left begging.
And maybe that’s good. Beggars and believers have much in common. They feel their need and confess their impotence. Someone outside them must show them mercy.
This is nothing new. The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah recognized that matters great and small are beyond our control. If we need rain, no matter how desperately, we cannot produce it ourselves. We must humbly cry out, submitting to one far greater. Once we bring ourselves to this, we can make only one grave error: crying out to one as impotent as ourselves. To a worthless god. To nature itself. It does no good, if you are in the throes of cancer, to plead with your lungs to produce healthy cells.
We can, however, go to God. Does that sound simple? Perhaps it is. Critics laugh at such “superstition.” But they have nothing superior to offer. They too are unable to make it rain or to make it stop raining. In our desperation, then, let us be beggars, let us be believers, let us call out to the God who can.
—
Jeff Hopper
November 3, 2015
Copyright 2015 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.