What would happen if it rained simultaneously all over the world?  Every nation, every land deluged with a global downpour.  Did you see the pictures out of Texas this week?  Flashfloods up the roofs of mobile homes because of sustained thunderstorms.  People clinging to those rooftops, waiting for rescue boats to sail up used-to-be streets.  Imagine an entire planet awash in rain showers.

Seven or eight months ago a group of Americans in central California began to imagine just such a scene and scenario.  Imagined what would happen to the world if a simultaneous rain shower covered the earth.  They became so moved by the scenes that they began sending out emails to other Americans to imagine the same.  And those emails soon crossed the continental borders of cyberspace, eventually circling the earth.

One of the emails reached my inbox at the turn of the year.  I took it to our senior leadership team and read it to them.  There in our comfortable circle we, too, imagined what the scenes would be were a simultaneous global rainfall to occur.  And frankly, our own spirits were moved to the place we decided that this “Operation Global Rain” ought to be a moment everyone in our parish was invited to join.

After all, didn’t the ancient prophet echo God’s command?  “Ask the LORD for rain in the time of the latter rain.  The LORD will make flashing clouds; He will give them showers of rain, grass in the field for everyone” (Zechariah 10:1).

You can always tell when your lawn becomes parched and brittle, can’t you?  And you don’t need to be a meteorologist to determine that the Darfur region of Sudan is desperately dry and barren.  Even so, all of us can tell when our own hearts and homes and churches and institutions and land have become spiritually dry and brittle, can’t we?  Surely, we have nothing to lose and everything to gain to join forces with congregations across this country and around the world in earnestly claiming God’s promise to pour out the Spirit of Pentecost upon our church and our world before the return of Christ:  “When the way is prepared for the Spirit of God, the blessing will come.  Satan can no more hinder a shower of blessing descending upon God’s people than he can close the windows of heaven that rain cannot come upon the earth” (I SM 124).

“Operation Global Rain” begins here at Pioneer next Sabbath and concludes on 07-07-07.   Pioneer families and members are invited to join this global prayer season by setting aside a time each morning or evening when our prayers can be joined to God’s promises for this mighty outpouring.  A study guide and collection of promises for each evening is available by going to www.operationglobalrain.com.

How will God respond globally to this united week of praying?  That’s for him to determine.  This much I know—your life and mine can become “like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail” (Isaiah 58:11).  Or in the words of Jesus, “out of [our] heart will flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38).  With a promise like that, why not plead for his rain now?