“Ask rain from the Lord in the season of the spring rain, from the Lord who makes the storm clouds, and he will give them showers of rain, to everyone the vegetation in the field.”
– Zechariah 10:1
It’s a simple verse, isn’t it? Ask for rain from the Lord, in the season of the spring rain. So now a naturalist, secularist, someone who doesn’t believe in God, just believes everything is happening naturally around us, he says, “Why would you ask for someone to provide rain when it’s the season of the spring rain? Like it just happens.”
But that’s the God-centered reality at the heart of the Bible and the guard that we need to make sure we have in our lives, in a world where so much is naturalistic, materialistic focused on what we can see, focused on what science says. Not that this is going against science and how rain happens with clouds and this or that, but the whole point is, it’s not ultimately natural processes. It’s the season of the spring rain because it’s the time when God chooses to fill the clouds with rain.
The One Who Brings the Rain
He’s the one who brings the rain. He’s the one who makes the storm clouds. When you see a storm cloud, you can know that’s not just natural processes happening up there. When you see water falling from the sky, it’s not just a natural process that you’re witnessing. It is a supernatural event.
Everything around us, in creation, is happening because of the sovereign Lord of creation. He’s the one who commands storm clouds to form, who commands storm clouds to bring water to the earth, to bring showers of rain. Zechariah 10:1, that cause crops in the field to grow. God does it all, which means it is right, not just to assume rain, but to pray for rain. It’s right, not just to assume food. Like why does Jesus teach us to pray? Give us this day, our daily bread? Well, that makes a lot of sense in a time, a place, where you’re not guaranteed food tomorrow.
Zechariah 10:1 Puts Full Dependence on God for Provision
You think about Deuteronomy 8, that’s referring to when God’s people in the Old Testament didn’t have food for each day, and they were dependent on God providing manna, bread from heaven, on a daily basis. So they prayed for it. God, give us our daily bread. Provide for us each day and so for those of us, which is most of us listening to this podcast, who live in places in the world where our refrigerators, pantries, are full of food. We don’t have to worry about where food is coming from tomorrow. We should not pray Matthew 6, any less, because we need the daily reminder in our lives.
This is why it’s totally right to pray for daily bread. Pray for food. To pray before meals and not just before meals for God’s provision, because the reality is, like all the natural processes that we look to, to bring us food could be gone in an instant if God doesn’t provide. It’s God who’s behind it all.
So, God, we pray that you’d help us to see this. Help us not to live with a naturalistic, materialistic, worldly perspective that ignores the fact, the reality, that you are our provider in every way. That apart from your grace and your mercy, we have nothing. Apart from your grace and your mercy, there is no water in the fields and there are no crops that grow. There’s no food on the table. There’s not breath in our lungs. We have nothing apart from you. God help us to see you as the author and giver and creator and provider of it all.
Zechariah 10:1 Prays for Lives that are Totally Dependent on God
We pray that you would help us to live with humility, realizing none of us are self-sufficient. Only you are self-sufficient. We are totally dependent upon you for everything. So help us to pray like it. Help us to pray for everything, to look to you for everything, as the giver of every good gift, as the provider of everything we need, and to trust you in this way.
God, increase our trust in you, as the one who promises to provide everything we need today. Then when we wake up tomorrow, you promise to provide everything we need tomorrow. So we don’t worry about anything, and everything by prayer and petition, we lift our requests to you and your peace, which transcends all understanding, guards our hearts and minds in Christ. We seek you first, your kingdom, your righteousness, and all these things, all that we need, is added to us. We praise you as our provider and we pray to you, as our provider, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
