Praying for Rain

It’s winter, but there’s beauty and life out there.?The sunsets and sunrises remind us of that.?So do the forages and cover crops that are still green in some pastures and fields.?The glimpses of life we catch during winter remind us nature needs our love and reverence year-round.?It also reminds us nature deserves our respect and sometimes it has to get our attention.?

In winter, I will admit, I have to be extra conscious about the onset of depression.?It’s not easy to find meaning in the depth of the season.?That’s why connecting with creation, the creation we are ourselves, and the creation around us, is so important this season.?Maybe it’s a time we can dig deeper and empathize with others living different lives too.?I have learned far more from farmers and ranchers living in different areas with a different set of circumstances than I would have ever learned staying in my backyard.

I know I am not alone in praying for rain the whole year through for a thirsty earth in so many areas.?I work with many farmers and ranchers that have been sorely without rain and needed moisture and it’s humbling to say the least.?I don’t have to tell you.?You know who you are.?You don’t have pivots and many of you have lived generations without an aquifer beneath you.?

There’s something that distinguishes these agriculturists from others, an innate understanding of a truth we all ultimately live with (but sometimes take horribly for granted) – we’re all at the mercy of creation.?As disconnected as we can become from creation, creation is who we are.?

What these farmers and ranchers without irrigation and ample rain have taught me, is sometimes when we have too much of something, we forget its value.?That something may be water, topsoil, and sometimes it’s what we didn’t earn by ourselves, and time makes some of us think we actually did – maybe farms, maybe machinery, maybe a host of things.?

When someone is lacking, we’re all lacking.?When someone is losing, we’re all losing.?But the history of agriculture demonstrates that when someone is losing, the system was designed to reward fewer and fewer.?Those who get left behind are oftentimes at the mercy of Mother Nature more than anyone else.?That’s why it’s important to pray for rain, but equally important to save the moisture when we get it and not to waste it right in front of neighbors who can’t just turn on the switch.??

Life is everywhere.?That life feeds our lives.?It’s the life found in a blade of grass, or how the sun can miraculously bend countless heads of grain its way, or the simple majesty of a cow grazing in a pasture rich with diversity.?Even those of us residing in the highest towers of the cities are all still bound to this life.?We are made up of the earth through the nutrients we take in through our food.?We are also literally teeming with microbes that are either healthy or gasping for life, depending upon the nourishment or lack thereof they are receiving.?Our human bodies and human lives can either function as a balanced or depraved system – a system that is very dependent upon the natural resources that support it.?One of the most important of these natural resources is our wisdom.???

It doesn’t matter where you live – we all need the rain to truly survive.?We should pray for rain, and also implement agricultural practices to help it to rain.?There are people praying for some of us to change the way we farm to help all our neighbors.?They know our actions will either lead to more deserts or fruitful landscapes.?The neighbors we talk to and learn from will make all the difference in the effectiveness of our solutions.?We have an active role to play in being the answer to our prayers.?It’s a well-known saying worth repeating, “God is in control, but God doesn’t expect you to lean on a shovel and pray for a hole.”??