In the coming weeks before winter officially arrives, I find myself captivated by the rolling farmlands around where I live. Whether it’s soy or cattle-corn fields, each patch of farmland has the same mangled, dehydrated disposition. Long rows of dismembered plants are evidence of what was only a few months back. By these, I’m reminded of my trip to Swaziland this summer. Sugar cane is their largest export, so if you see any green on their cracked and arid land, that’s probably what it is. Interestingly, once the farmers are ready to harvest the sugar cane they worked so hard to grow, they do like any reasonable Swazi farmer would do and set the fields ablaze.

No joke. Since deadly Black Mamba snakes navigate these fields day and night hunting for mice, the farmers set the sugar cane fields on fire to make sure all the snakes are killed. It also enriches the soil and somehow makes the sugar cane harvest more plentiful. I don’t really get how it all works but who am I to question their methods? The only thing I’ve ever grown is a “money tree” (they do exist!) that my dad’s green thumb resurrected this summer after I showered the thing with neglect.

I can’t imagine the amount of work it takes to prepare a crop each year and how gratifying it is to literally harvest the fruits of your labor in the fall. With that realization, though, comes the sobering reality that you may work your butt off day in and day out, and your harvest may still yield very little.

Today, we are more “self-sufficient” when it comes to agriculture. Irrigation systems are well-established and utilized. Manure provides plants with nutrients they may not otherwise have received from regular soil. We can even spray our plants with electrons that kill harmful organisms. That’s crazy stuff right there.

Back in Bible times, specifically in the Old Testament (Genesis-Malachi) the people lived in what is called an “agrarian society” or a society that has an economy based on crops and farming. If you had a lot of cows, you were rich. This still holds true in many parts of the world that don’t possess the same resources and technology we now have in the West. Did they rely on special electron shooting sprayers to help grow a crop? No. They had the rain, the sun and some primitive farming techniques.

Some had a real relationship with the God who not only made them, but also crafted the water, the sun and the plants that bore the seeds they needed to germinate for survival. These people hoped in their Lord for what they needed. Even throughout times of drought and famine, their God came through for them when they sought Him.

Here’s a question that might stir up a few people. Can you make it rain? I’m talking literally make H²O come out of the sky, not count that big stack of cash you got in front of me. God asked a guy named Job this very question.

“Can you raise your voice to the clouds and cover yourself with a flood of water?” Job 38:34

I’ve been struck by scripture after scripture recently that communicates the same thing. Writer after writer realizing their insignificance before the one who “sends the lightning bolts on their way” even without an audible encounter like Job. This simplicity of provision by God eludes us as individuals and a culture.

We don’t ask these questions anymore. We think we know it all. We think we can provide for ourselves and we don’t need God. We either don’t believe that this God of the Bible really exists, or we simply aren’t amazed with Him and don’t believe He is who He says He is. We miss God’s glory and fail to see our greatest need which goes beyond putting food on the table.

Think past just what you see. When I think about those barren fields, I realize something. I was that wasteland. The only thing that can give eternal life is the living water found in Jesus Christ, God’s own son. Similarly, the only thing to make a plant grow is the physical water that again, only God provides. After receiving Jesus and what he did to save me from this nothingness, he gave me life. He is the only one who continues to give me life, as he keeps me by his grace. Without Him, we may be breathing, but our souls look exactly like those fields; brown, lifeless and scorched by the elements of sin in ourselves and the fallen world around us.

Many think the Bible is a bunch of nonsense, but they’ve never actually taken the time to read it. Their hearts are closed, and eyes shut for no other reason than some hypocrites have hijacked the name “Christian” and condemned themselves by quoting the very Word of God they don’t live out or believe. Please, if you feel that way towards the Bible because of the failures of man, don’t be fooled so easily by fakeness. It’s not about us. It’s about Him.

God knows our condition. He knows our brokenness. He certainly didn’t cause it, but he won’t force anyone to chose him. He wants us to come to Him of our own free will to get the water we so desperately need and only he provides, in Jesus. You can have life if you’d simply ask Him for the rain. He supplies it in abundance.

“He will be like rain falling on a mown field, like showers watering the earth.” Psalm 72: 6

 

The following scripture was referenced throughout the blog. Check these wonderful truths out for yourself!

Job 36: 27-31 – People knew the science behind rain thousands of years ago because God revealed it.

Job 37: 13 – Why does He bring the rain?

Job 38: 25-28 – Who makes it rain?

Psalm 65:12 – He even brings growth in dry places.

Job 38:37,41 – God’s wisdom.

John 4:1-26 – Jesus, the living water.