Prayer and the weather

I was seven years old and out on the veranda of my grandmother's home, about mile from my father’s farm. For several days, my father had been saying that the corn and soybeans really needed a good rain. So when I saw a rain cloud just a few miles away, I decided to pray for the cloud to come to our farm and give us the rain we so needed. As I fervently prayed, I watched the cloud move away in the opposite direction.

This wasn’t what I’d expected, and I was filled with self-pity and even doubt for a while. Much later in life, I realized that this incident was actually a good lesson in how not to pray. Deciding on a particular outcome and then praying to God to bring it about isn’t really prayer—it’s an attempt to use God rather than to humbly accept God's will.

Sometimes people think God’s will is to deprive them of good or happiness. But the fact is that God’s will for us is always good and will bring true fulfillment to our lives.

This statement is full of encouragement: "Desire is prayer; and no loss can occur from trusting God with our desires, that they may be moulded and exalted before they take form in words and in deeds" (1:11 ). Learning more of God's goodness and praying from that vantage point strengthens and clarifies our prayers. Mary Baker Eddy wrote a whole chapter on prayer in Science and Health, and it provides both specific guidance and much assurance regarding prayer.

That childhood prayer of mine needed to be freed not only from my outlined expectation, but also from being limited to obtaining good for my dad and not for the other farmers. But how do we keep from outlining expectations, about the weather or anything else, when the desired result seems obvious? In short, how can our prayers be "moulded and exalted"?

The Bible illuminates humanity’s progress toward understanding man’s spiritual relation to God, as well as God's control of the weather. The story of Noah pictures God as sending rain to destroy the unrighteous. And Moses used his prayer for bad weather to coerce Pharaoh into freeing the children of Israel. One thing that’s interesting about these accounts is that in the story of Noah, all but a handful of people were destroyed, while in dealing with Pharaoh, loss of life was not as universal. To me, this shows that a higher understanding of God was developing, at least to a degree.

Both of these accounts stand in sharp contrast to Jesus’ view of God as a good and loving Father. And Jesus certainly did not perceive God as ever afflicting anyone with bad weather. Rather, he understood God as expressing only impartial goodness. In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that God “maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust" (Matt 5:45 ).

An experience from Mary Baker Eddy’s life has helped me in this regard. She invited the members of her household to come to her, and asked each one individually, "Can a Christian Scientist control the weather?" Each answered, "Yes."When weather reports warn of approaching storms, our prayers are as effective and fruitful as our understanding of God's goodness and the impartial nature of divine Love. But this doesn’t mean that we should try to control the weather.

Then Mrs. Eddy said, “They can’t, but God can and does. Now I want you to see the point I am making. A Christian Scientist has no business attempting to control or govern the weather any more than he has a right to attempt to control or govern sickness, but he does know, and must know, that God governs the weather and no other influence can be brought to bear upon it. . . . God’s weather is always right. A certain amount of rain and sunshine is natural and normal, and we have no right to interfere with the stately operations of divine Wisdom in regulating meteorological conditions. . . . I want you to remember that the weather belongs to God, and when we destroy the operations of mortal mind, and leave the question of regulating the weather to God, we shall have weather conditions as they should be.” (Mary Baker Eddy: Christian Healer, Yvonne Caché von Fettweis and Robert Townsend Warneck, Boston: The Christian Science Publishing Society,1998, pp. 311-312).

Several years ago I had an experience that highlighted the importance of the concept that God governs the weather. Though I hadn't heard a tornado warning, I suddenly felt the need to both pray and take shelter in the basement. At the time, another woman was helping me do some work in the house, and I called her to come down to the basement with me.

But before either of us had taken a step downstairs, we heard a thunderous, roaring noise. In seconds it was over, and I knew a tornado had touched down. I had time to declare God's government of the weather and was grateful that we had not suffered any damage.

I was, however, concerned about a neighbor who was expecting to give birth any day. I later learned that she had pulled into her driveway and was about to run from the car to the house when a small tree fell, blocking the car door. This fallen tree kept her from being outside at the exact time the tornado touched down. The car was only lightly scratched and she was completely protected.

Although a considerably larger tree fell on the house that belonged to neighbors across the street, it did no damage to the house. There was no other significant damage in the neighborhood.

Once Mrs. Eddy was asked by the Boston Globe to give its readers her thoughts on the significance of the last Thanksgiving of the nineteenth century. Included in a wonderful prophesy of the future are these words: "that the atmosphere of the human mind, cleansed of self and permeated with divine Love, will reflect this purified subjective state in clearer skies, less thunderbolts, tornadoes, and extremes of heat and cold;" (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 265 ) Recognizing that many others were praying as a result of the tornado warning, and also trusting my own prayers at that time, I feel encouraged to affirm that God governs the weather. And I am sure that as we know more of the beneficent nature of God, our prayers will be more certain and effective.

Not only our prayers but also our day-to-day thinking and living relate to the weather. As the Bible predicted, throughout the centuries spiritually-minded thinkers have revealed a more beneficent and universal God. As our prayers build on the goodness of God, our spiritual knowing can lead humanity to a more harmonious world.

This harmony is expressed in many ways, including the weather. Just as the Biblical revelation rises from the belief that God punishes humankind through destructive weather to a higher understanding of God as Love, so too can we gain the Christly conviction of Jesus that a universal God sends good to all impartially.

Each day, as we learn more of God's goodness and power, our prayers will be more convincing and more effective. Each weather forecast gives us the opportunity to know that under God’s care, “we will have weather conditions as they should be.”

Trust God with your prayers:

King James Bible
Gen 7:16-19
Ex 9:22-24