For three years, Lord, You withheld rain and dew from the land bringing severe drought. Crops eventually dried up. Grain was harder and harder to find to make bread. Olive groves stopped producing so oil was hard to get too. Soon even the streams and brooks began to dry up.
The famine was so severe that even grass for the livestock vanished; to the point that King Ahab was going to have to kill livestock for lack of food.
All this happened because the people had turned away from You, abandoning what they knew to be right and true. Without keeping Your commands they had followed and worshipped other gods.
In my times Father, You are not honored or obeyed. Like then, people have been led away from You to worship many things: self, money, possessions, status, environment, political ideologies, man’s philosophies. The people live by ungodly values.
And there is a drought. The life-giving water of Your Word has not been acknowledged in a long time.
But rain is coming! The stage is set, and Elijah is sent to call the people back.
I Kings 18 tells of the showdown.
Since Baal was worshipped as the god of rain, thunder, fertility of the land, and agriculture; he should have been able to provide for the crops during those 3 years. He did not.
He was also supposed to be the god of fire, so it should have been an easy thing for his power to burn up the offering his priests set up for him. But although the priests called and danced and cut themselves, Baal did not answer.
At the end of the day, Elijah called the people together to prove Your supremacy. He soaked the wood and offering three times to make it even harder for a natural fire to be lit.
Then Elijah prayed – that You would make Yourself seen and known to the people who were watching. That they would recognize and remember that You, the Lord, are God, and there is no other.
And that with this sign, this miracle, You would turn the people’s hearts back to You.
You showed up! The “fire of the Lord” fell and burned it all up! And the people fell on their faces and cried “The Lord – He is God! The Lord – He is God!”
Father, would You send an Elijah to call the people back to You now. Open peoples’ ears to hear the call. Let them see Your miracle when it happens.
Give them understanding to acknowledge Your hand in it. And let their faith be rekindled, renewed, as You turn their hearts back to You. So that from here on, people will trust that You, the Lord, are God; and there is no other.
The stage is set. The time for so many people is now.
Father, send Your fire! Amen
Daily Bible Prayer 
A very timely entry in these “dog days” of June! Let the fire fall!
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