Oh, Never Mind. I Took Care of It.

From my front yard - the horses are Cha Cha and Charlie.

Sunday Sermon 2

I have been thinking a lot this past month about my rural upbringing. We prayed for snow, or rain, or sun, or warmth on a daily basis. The fields were everyone's livelihood. Even if you didn't own an acre, or a cow, the local weather affected your own livelihood. If the farmers didn't have healthy, heavy cattle to sell from eating good winter hay, you closed your store. If the potatoes froze, families moved away and there were fewer kids to teach as a teacher. If the drought caused the deer to die, there would be no guiding money and no extra taxes to collect.

The valley where I grew up.

The farmers all over the Western United States called for people to fast and pray for rain at the beginning of February this year. The reservoirs we rely on for irrigation were drained to the bottom last year. Usually they stay half full. We drink from those reservoirs in the major cities along the Wasatch Front. The situation was dire. And the winter to this point had been dismal for water. Many of the snowpacks were at 20 percent of normal - and that was following the rough year before.

Well, people prayed. It was like being in my hometown again, listening to the fervent prayers for moisture.

The Lord heard our prayers. February brought our water storage in snowpack up remarkably. We had rain and snow in the mountains a lot, and that is unusual, and as March begins, it just keeps coming. We still have a way to go to get our numbers up enough to take us out of the extended drought, but no one can miss the miracle of February 2014.

Or can they? I am reminded of a story from my Dad. He probably told it to me when I was a little lazy in my faith or work ethic, but it stuck. It was a simple story:

There was a young man whose roof needed just a bit of fixing. He carefully climbed up the ladder and climbed warily onto the two-story roof. After a few minutes he got confident enough to wander the roof without too much fear. He quickly finished his patches at the very top of the roof and took a step toward the ladder below.

That is when it happened. He slipped. As he fell closer and closer to the edge of the roof, he tried to grab something, anything, that would prevent his falling. Finally, in desperation, he cried out, "Lord, please save me!"

Almost in that split second (and he really had no time but a split second before he would have fallen into the abyss), his back pants pocket caught on a protruding nail and stopped his descent.

"Oh, never mind, Lord. I took care of it", he said as he reached for the ladder.


We have truly experienced the hand of God in the last month. But in the prayers at church last week I heard no mention of the rain.

If God had a temper, I think he'd tip the ladder to the ground and leave us stranded up there on the roof.

And the story carries an added significance that is easy to miss. The thing that saved him was a nail.

Whether it is rain or atonement we need, let us be aware from whence the blessing comes. And it isn't our back pocket.