I’m a bit torn by the governor’s call to pray for rain and the signage. I’ll put that aside for a minute, though.

There is something simple, something beautiful about a prayer for rain in the midst of drought. Done with humility and thanks, it recognizes that God is the author of creation and that we are inescapably dependent upon his provision. We’re called to cry out to God in times of trouble not so that he’ll deliver us from our momentary trouble and let us get on with our days. Instead, we must continually perform this ritual of humility, supplication, and thanks, thus affirming the dynamic relationship between YHWH and his people.

In this case, I agree with you though. Somehow I don’t think the state (or the church) will spend a week or a month giving thanks to God for the rain. Instead, the rain will become “like water” when it comes - expected, even demanded - without gratitude.

On the “symptoms / root cause” discussion, I don’t know Georgia well but I have studied the southwest - particularly Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico. The food, water, and energy infrastructure in this area is highly vulnerable. Building major cities there was a mistake. They’re completely dependent upon water diverted from other sources, resulting in increased evaporation over the long distance and vulnerability to contamination and drought. Food must be trucked in from afar, promising hard times when peak oil hits. Figure in the extremely high energy usage for AC during the summer and poor public transit, and you’ve got one of the most unsustainable regions on the planet. I don’t see prayer getting us out of this jam.

Even so, I have friends who are farmers in Northern Indiana and know what a “drought” means for them. I’ll be praying for rain.

“Perhaps instead of asking God to bail us out, he actually wants us to figure out the systemic issues that we created that caused the problem in order to fix the root issues instead of just expecting God to treat the symptoms.

Perhaps that’s a good way to describe my frustration. I’m ok with an interventionist God who helps fix “the roots” but I’m not ok with an interventionist God who fixes the symptoms.”

Yet sometimes the root problem is that we don’t actually pursue God and rely on Him. We normally ignore Him and try to take care of things ourselves. The Bible is clear about God creating environments that cause people to turn towards Him. Droughts certainly can fall into that category.

As far as Georgia is concerned, yes, I think we should be praying for rain. But I do think that Purdue was elected to do something, and while I think it’s fine that he wants to pray for rain (and ask others to do the same), I think he should also show some real leadership and stand up to Florida, Alabama, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the environmentalists and declare the water in Lake Lanier as belonging to Georgia. Let them sue. Meanwhile, our water supply and even the integrity of the lake is at stake (something I’m surprised nobody is talking about).

The problem here isn’t overconsumption or overdevelopment, though they contribute to the intensity of the problem. The real problem right now is the years we have had of low rainfall, and the drought we are experiencing right now. Asking God for help is an appropriate response.

scott. i agree with you. i’m not prepared to throw away prayer. or to dismiss it’s formative power. so i agree it’s a legitimate (even primary) form vehicle for communication and relationship between creation and creator. my proposal is that it is much more of an inward/global act, in that it is humanity in conversation with god, not attempting to align god to humanity, but instead align ourselves with god’s visions and dreams for the world. in that way it is individualistic so that through it we begin to see god’s dreams for the world. so it is inward transformation. at which point it shifts and becomes local and global. if transformation has truly happened and we are getting a bigger and bigger picture of god’s dreams for the worlds then we begin to act and “be the change we want to see in the world” instead of relying on god to bail us out.

again . . . this is not to say that god doesn’t, can’t, or won’t bail us out. but rather his direct intervention is not or should not be the first or primary goal of prayer. rather prayer is the medium in which we align to god. when we beg god to intervene without our inner transformation and without us becoming the change and solution, we are seeking to align god to our ways, agenda, etc. at which point he becomes the commercial, consumerist, santa claus god to which we bring christmas lists.

nick made a good point the other day when he said he’s fasting from “asking god” for anything. while i don’t know that i’m willing to never ask god for anything, i think this is a useful perspective for us to realize that prayer is not always about asking but rather becoming.

in this light, prayer becomes much more relational, holy, transformative, spiritual, disciplined, etc.

derek. it’s a shame we didn’t get a chance to hang out more and just talk like normal people before we got to come back to the blog and take up our polar opposite positions.

“The Bible is clear about God creating environments that cause people to turn towards Him.”

for me, the bible isn’t so clear about God creating disasters to make people trust him more. that type of God sounds pretty sketchy to me. i’m going to cause pain and harm and catastrophe in order to make people trust me. i’m going to create death and destruction so that i can give people a chance to accept life and hope?

it’s an odd way of doing things if you ask me. sounds more like some sort of tribal, blood god than YHWH.

this is my blog tomorrow so i don’t want to rush ahead. but i’m just not so sure that god creates disaster in order to get us to trust him. i think disasters are a natural outcome of a world in disrepair and colored by sin.

and i’m not sure the answer is for sonny to butch up to everyone else and tell them we’re keeping the water. again, that sounds pretty tribal, colonial, possessive, vindicative, selfish, etc. as if the water is ours and no one else’s because we happen to live on the same land where it resides. to get technical the water comes from the mountains of TN. so if anybody owns it they should. this whole separation of creation, environment, humans, god . . . where everything is all spliced up and separated seems rather far removed from the hebrew way of living integrally with the land.

and while i agree it is not just the fault of over development. it seems rather shallow for rich suburban christians to start praying when they get 2 months away from running out of water.

meanwhile for years leading up to that, they can water their perfect green lawns every day for hours on end, take hour long showers, take baths every night, take their SUVs to the carwash once a week and then somehow think that by drinking bottled water now they’re doing their part to become the solution.

it’s shallow. it’s dishonest. and it’s still not stewardship.