ie:missional teaching. glocalizing. living. serving. repenting. incarnating. loving. repeating.

In case you don’t live in the southeast and, therefore, may not have heard, it hasn’t rained much here in a while. At a time of year when Atlanta would have normally received 50 inches of rain, we are some 26 inches shy of average. In fact, almost all of north Georgia, over 50% of Alabama, about 50% of Tennessee and parts of North Carolina are in the midst of an “exceptional drought,” the most dire category in the annals of weather prognosticators, meteorologists and other record keeping peoples. With a warm, dry winter predicted for the upcoming season, things are not looking any wetter…or better.

If it were a lack of rain alone, then it might not be a story. But, Atlanta is the largest metropolitan area in the US being served by a watershed area as small as the Chattahoochee River Basin. Combine that with the lack of planning by state and local municipalities who have issued building permits like there is no tomorrow and we have a situation in which the primary energy and drinking water source for the city of Atlanta, Lake Sidney Lanier, has dropped to near (if not to) an all time low and continues to drop at an alarming rate. Entire marinas are nothing but mud, surrounded by boats having no chance of floating.

As if this weren’t enough, the Corps of Engineers which is in charge of releasing water through Buford Dam is charged by the EPA with releasing about 3,000,000 gallons of water each day more than is necessary to support the continued life of freshwater mussels in the Appalachicola River. (See info about the Apalachicola, Flint, Chattahoochee basins.) Add to that the ongoing GA-ALA water dispute and you have the makings of a real crisis, which is what we are facing.

Enter the leadership of Georgia churches. During our periodic drought times, which have been increasing both in length and in frequency, area pastors always call for prayer that God might intervene and send rain to our parched earth, both providing replenishment for our drinking, car washing and bathing supplies and to help our already federally subsidized peanut farmers. This year our Governor, Sonny Perdue, himself a believer joined in the call. News reports mentioned 300 people gathered to pray on the Barrow County Courthouse steps, which was followed by a steady drizzle and then two days of precipitation. The leaders of the Georgia Baptist Convention have joined in citing a tie between repentance and physical blessing as observed in 2 Chronicles 7:14.

In times such as this, my question has always been, “Should we pray for rain? We pray and pray and pray for God to intervene in people’s lives, to bring revival to ‘the land’ and cause spiritual awakening, what if the drought is His way of getting the attention of people who should acknowledge their dependence on Him. Are we praying against the very method that God is using to answer our first prayer?”  I don’t know, so I join in prayer with everyone else.

This is what I’d like to see: during one week of November, the Muslims implore Allah for seven days of rain. During a second week, the Hindus talk to Krishna about the crisis, during a third week the Jews pray and during the final week, Christians pray and the God who answers by a seven day period of steady rain is the true God. We could even allow the atheists to assign the weeks to ensure no cheating or advantage.

Yeah, I know, but at least my idea is biblical (1 Kings 18).