"There arises a little cloud out of the sea"

Living in the southwest for over 25 years has given me a lot of exposure to weather extremes. It’s not unusual to experience high winds and dust, tornados, flooding, heat waves, -5 to 110 degree days, and a severe drought.

The drought or 2012 in Lubbock, TX felt like a textbook example of the dustbowl days of the 1920s. Cattle were starving, agriculture was suffering, and the economy was languishing. It gave me a lot of opportunity to think about weather patterns, jet streams, and water. It was most definitely on everyone’s prayer-list!

Knowing that God is a good and only blesses His creation, there’s no temptation to think that this lack is simply “God’s will” or just bad luck. While many would say that an adjustment in the jet stream is necessary for rain, this is still an effect rather than a cause. After all, isn’t the jet stream also a creation, idea, of God and something He governs?

My prayer has unfolded to me that simply finding a cause to this lack of rainfall is not enough. We should look deeper into God’s care for His creation. We should prayerfully understand that an all-good God brings forth all good, and this includes needed and balanced amounts of rain, to nourish and water the earth and the people and creatures thereon.

The Bible story of Elijah praying to break a three-year drought can open thought to the possibility of rain not merely being caused by material elements, but brought forth from the one and only cause, God. I Kings teaches us that Elijah prayed to break the drought and he put King Ahab on a watch for the rain. At one point Elijah instructed Ahab to “go up now, look toward the sea,” but “there was nothing.” Ahab was instructed to do this seven times. While Elijah was praying, Ahab was looking and expecting. The seventh time Ahab reported, “there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man's hand.” Then, “the heaven was black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain" (I Kings 18:41-45).

This fulfillment of God’s promise of rain stands for us today, too. It is possible for us to completely understand that God governs the weather and that we’re also able to bring forth the clouds and rain through our prayers, as Elijah did. Prayerful persistence, that acknowledges God as the source of all good and all supply, keeps thought on the abundance of His care, not on the threatening lack which matter would promote.

Mrs. Eddy, the Discoverer of Christian Science writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, “To calculate one’s life-prospects from a material basis, would infringe upon spiritual law and misguide human hope (SH 319:5). Thought kept on the abundance of God does not infringe upon spiritual law nor misguide human hope. Rather, it enables us to calculate our life-prospect from a divine view of existence. We can expect to experience the abundance of His care. All of God’s creation can expect to feel the power of His Word commanding forth His good desire for His creation, thus feeling the "raindrops of divinity refreshing the earth" (SH 288).

It has helped me to understand that rain is also a creation of God, just as the cattle, the crops, the vegetation and the birds are all of His ideas. So, it’s only spiritually logical that each idea is abundant and cared for by God, not dependent upon each other for survival, but dependent upon their one source, God. What is good, then, is not withheld. Rather, it is overflowing and enriching.

When the drought broke in Lubbock in 2013 we had almost 10 inches of rain in 60 days. We all can rejoice that God’s supply of abundance and care for all His creation is for all time.