"Behind the cloud the starlight lurks, Through showers the sunbeams fall; For God, who loveth all his works, Has left his Hope with all." John Greenleaf Whittier                                                        

We have been praying for rain for the past three weeks and we have been blessed with showers.  Late yesterday evening, we had a brief thunderstorm, what my Navajo friends call a male rain, followed by a soft female rain until long after I went to bed.  Everything smells and looks so clean this morning.

I've thought about praying for rain.  The Hopi do it as a regular part of their religious observance - almost an ordinance, to use a term familiar to me.  But as I walked in my garden this morning I thought, "Did my prayers make it rain?"  I doubt it.  I believe that  God knows we need rain here in the desert and He blesses us accordingly.  We don't pray to make God do anything.  He loves us.  He knows what we need before we even ask.  When we pray, we are affirming our faith in Him.  We are affirming our love and our obedience.  We are affirming that we are His.  We petition Him with hope and He blesses us according to our needs and His will.  The great  Christian apologist, C. S. Lewis, wrote this about prayer: "Prayer doesn't change God; it changes me."