The Rain Comes Again
41 Then Elijah said to King Ahab, “Now go eat and drink. A heavy rain is coming.” 42 So King Ahab went to eat. At the same time Elijah climbed to the top of Mount Carmel. At the top of the mountain, Elijah bent down. He put his head between his knees. 43 Then Elijah said to his servant, “Go up higher and look toward the sea.”
The servant went and looked. He came back and said, “I saw nothing.” Elijah told him to go look again. This happened seven times. 44 The seventh time, the servant came back and said, “I saw a small cloud the size of a man’s fist that was coming in from the sea.”
Elijah told the servant, “Go tell King Ahab to get his chariot ready and go home now. If he does not leave now, the rain will stop him.”
45 After a short time the sky was covered with dark clouds. The wind began to blow, and a heavy rain began to fall. Ahab got in his chariot and started back to Jezreel. 46 The power of the Lord came to Elijah. He used his belt to hold up the bottom of his robe away from his feet. Then he ran ahead of King Ahab all the way to Jezreel.
1 Kings 18:41-46
Israel had experienced a drought for 3 years, and then the hand of God moved.
Elijah believed in the word of God and he believed in the goodness of God.
In 1 Kings 18:1, the Lord said to Elijah ’Go and present yourself to King Ahab. Tell him that I will soon send rain!’
Elijah, did not doubt and he did not wait for a sign to confirm this word.
He trusted God and went straight to Ahab to tell him the good news.
Then Elijah went to pray and he believed that God would follow through on His word. There was not one cloud in the sky that day when he bent down to the ground to implore to the Lord that He send the rain that He had promised.
Yet never once did he doubt.
He sent his servant 7 times to go and look for slightest hint of hope and when he finally came back and reported that there was a cloud the size of a man’s fist rising from the ocean, Elijah sent him to tell the King that the rain was literally on it’s way.
Elijah did not wait for the first drops of rain for fall. He trusted in God’s promise coming to pass even when there was only the tiniest hint of hope.
God loves our faith and he loves our trust in Him.
It gives him unending joy to pour out his blessings on our lives – all we need is to believe. The bible says that all we need is faith the size of a mustard seed and we could tell a mountain to move and it would move.
But we need to truly believe that God can!
On Saturday, Cape Town enjoyed a wonderfully refreshing and consistent rain.
This is a true treasure in the time of extreme drought. Let us all, as believers in God, continue to pray for God to bring his rain. Even in these summer months, let us pray for Gods hand to move and let us trust for more and more rain.
Matthew 17:18-20
18 Then Jesus rebuked the demon in the boy and it left him, and from that moment the boy was well.
19 Afterwards the disciples asked Jesus privately, “Why couldn’t we cast that demon out?”
20 “Because of your little faith,” Jesus told them. “For if you had faith even as small as a tiny mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, ‘Move!’ and it would go far away. Nothing would be impossible.
Living Bible