Devotion 9.2.16

The rain is a blessing of epic proportions.  As I had read about the frontier in my college days and its shaping of the nation, you learned that weather patterns west of the Mississippi can be harsh.  The Great Plains, if you find maps from the 1800s, was also called the Great American Desert, because its terrain was filled with rocks and grasses and dry lands, yet because of the steel plow, the rocks were removed and the aquifers, coupled with rain, created the Heartland.  We forget, however, that the area is harsh and prone to varying degrees of heat, cold, wind, and drought.

The great Texas historian Walter Prescott Webb wrote about settling West Texas and was flabbergasted that we would waste its resources to settle in the area because of the lack of water (and attacks from Indians and Mexicans on the plains of West Texas and the Rio Grand area).  So, when I moved here to validate the harshness of the land, I was amazed one day when I heard a couple of "West Texans" complain about the rain.  "I'm so sick of it," one exclaimed, after a prolonged bout with rain that month.  "I learned in Houston to never curse away the rain," I responded, "Because even in a tropical climate, if it stops, it stops."

After about five to seven years of severe drought, it is a welcomed sight to eyes weary of a land that is so unforgiving that it doesn't even supply a basic nutrient to life of all kinds for years, drying up reservoirs, taking water out of aquifers, and literally driving the life away that depends on it. 

"And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus." So writes Paul in Philippians 4:19.  Christ gives us what we need (different from want):  truth, forgiveness, grace, mercy, love.  He also answers prayer, sometimes yes and sometimes no.  We know that we live in a climate that can be harsh, so we are thankful at all times when God gives us the gift of rain and other things necessary for our lives.  We pray a prayer of thanks for God giving us this day, our daily bread.

Hope Men's Ministry