No Drips

A dismal wet summer makes it hard to plan things like family BBQ's in the park, yet plan we did. One big get-together at the end of the holidays to also cover a birthday celebration, requires a fair amount of diary coordination but we managed it. Everyone in the same place, at the same time, on the same day. All that was left was to hope for reasonably decent weather. 

"I'll get Hannah on the weather prayers," says my sister in law.

My little niece Hannah, who is only four, always prays about the weather. If she's feeling bored indoors on a wet day, she asks God to make the rain stop so as to be able to play outside. If her daddy is going out for a run, she prays for it to be dry long enough for him to be able to pound out ten miles on the roads. Hannah prays with absolute faith that God will turn off the rain when she asks him. She doesn't think he might do it, she knows he will. So Hannah and her little brother prayed for 'no drips on Sunday' while I started to think of contingency plans and alternative venues.

I didn't believe like Hannah. My faith was in the big blue umbrella and the wellies that would keep the drips off my head and the kids' feet dry. By lunchtime the day before the BBQ, I had no suitable Plan B.

What to do?

Hannah came to mind. It occurred to me that I could pray about the weather too. Instead of smiling patronisingly at the innocence of child like faith, I could join her in prayer.

So that's what I did. I laid our weekend plans out in front of God, asked him to bless our time together with dry weather and didn't think another thought about plans B-Z.

The rest of Saturday passed by largely sunlit with just one heavy shower. 

BBQ Sunday arrived.

Let me tell you this. Our picnic table had a bottle of suncream sitting on it! Not only did it not rain but the sun beamed hot and bright all afternoon. The kids played barefoot in the grass, T shirts and hats on. The grown ups sat in fold out chairs, sleeves rolled up, sunglasses on. We munched on burgers and chocolate cake, sang happy birthday, laughed at silly things and generally had a lovely time beside the big beautiful tree in the park.

It's turned into our spot. I look forward to meeting beside the tree again next summer and in the year before 'BBQ in the park 2016', I hope we all learn to follow the lead of little Hannah in prayer. To bring all the simple every day things of life to our Father, asking for his help and blessing with the pure, resolute belief of a child, knowing that he gives abundantly out of his boundless love, knowing all things are under his control, knowing that he hears the prayers of his little ones and answers. 

To flip 1 Timothy 4:12 on its head and turn it to prayer, let's ask that we will not look down on anyone because they are young. That we will be humble enough believers to follow their example in what they say, the way they live, in how they love and in the purity of their faith. 

Let's pray for God to dry up the drips of pride and unbelief and instead ask for the rain of Deuteronomy 32:2

'Let my teaching fall on you like rain;

let my speech settle like dew. 

Let my words fall like rain on tender grass,

like gentle showers on young plants.'