No Elijah
2003-04-16 | 6:45 p.m.

One bright, warm, sunny Sunday when I was in the ninth grade, my mom and I went to church in the town I had grown up in. We hadn't been to that church for a while, because this was during the period of our hiatus on Lake Buchanan.

So in lieu of a sermon, he begins by telling the congregation about how hard it is for his family there. No one from church paid attention to them. He wasn't being paid enough money. They were miserable. Honestly, I felt for him. It was sad. Until!

He said that he was going to pray that the Lord would withhold rain from the land for three years. He was getting this from James 5:17-18 which says, "Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops."

The community I grew up in is a farming/ranching community, and it's very dependent on rain. Something like that would be completely devastating to our economy. People would lose everything. It was a very bold and rather awful thing to do. He felt strongly about how he and his family had been mistreated, though, and I guess he felt justified in asking the Lord to essentially destroy a few hundred lives.

This was scary. We were already in a drought. There was no rain in the forecast and one of the main prayer concerns was for rain. So the congregation sat in shock while he laid it all out. However, he didn't want to make everyone wait three years for the Lord to prove that he was right. He was going to call for a sign to show us before midnight that God was against us. He said, "If it does not rain before midnight, then you will know that God is on my side. However, if it rains before midnight, we will know I am wrong and I will offer my immediate resignation."

He actually finished the sentence, but he may as well not have. While he was still speaking, we heard loud peals of thunder and rain was drenching the church. Keep in mind that it had been sunny when we walked in and no rain was in the forecast, so this was a cool little event. Everyone suppressed the urge to run outside and look at it long enough to close the worship service. Then we all ran outside...kids, grown ups...all of us. We ran outside, and the clouds were already breaking apart. The sun was shining again, and everything was glistening after a nice wash down. That evening another storm blew in and it rained for several days.

He resigned. It was all very unfortunate, but still cool the way God intervened that way.

Ok, so that's the story. Now a parental update:

My parents are good. :)

Also, my appointment with the doctor went well. I bought some olive leaf extract today so hopefully that will keep me awake in the mornings. It's just a mild herbal stimulant.

That is all.

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