Let’s Pray for Showers of Blessing and Revival 

As I was out in my garage, I saw the darkening afternoon sky and could hear the low rumbling of distant thunder. I knew that there were showers in the vicinity. It seemed like we had been receiving more than our share of those summer downpours recently. Would we get another one on this occasion? At one point I heard the loud plopping noise as several large raindrops fell on our driveway. There weren’t many of them, but they were big. Sometimes those widely scattered drops are the prelude to a greater deluge that is about to come. Other times I have witnessed those large drops come and go without any other precipitation falling. On this occasion, those large raindrops ceased and there was silence for a few minutes. I wondered if that was the extent of it – if the storm had passed us by. However, a few minutes later, here came the heavier shower.

That experience reminded me of a song we used to frequently sing. Maybe you remember it. It referred to needed showers of blessing, seasons of refreshing, and the hope for revival. The chorus stated, “Mercy-drops round us are falling, but for the showers we plead.” Do we have a longing in our heart for God to pour out His showers of blessing and revival on us?

Certainly, God is still working in our world today. His drops of mercy and blessing are falling. No matter who we are and whether or not we recognize it, we are blessed each and every day. “Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22-23). Jesus reminded us that God extends His blessings to all people – “for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45). God’s drops of mercy, grace, love, and blessing are falling all around us and touching our lives. However, it does seem that although some of those drops are quite large and significant in our lives, they are generally very scattered, just falling here and there on individuals or small groups. As that song suggests, we recognize those drops of mercy with grateful hearts, yet we also long for a greater and more widespread outpouring from the Lord.

Let’s pray for those showers of blessing from the Lord to fall on us, our families, our churches, our communities, and our world. Some individuals, congregations, and nations seem to be experiencing a measure of refreshing and revival in these days. However, we are also witnessing a “falling away” as described in scripture as a sign of the last days. Can both be taking place at the same time? Even if the world in general is pulling further away from God and even if much of the Christian church is forsaking the clear teaching of God’s Word, we can still experience times of refreshing and revival if we will seek the Lord, put Him first in our lives, submit to His Word, and yield ourselves completely to Him. No matter what happens around us, we can experience revival in our own souls. But let’s pray that it won’t just be us who experience a few drops of personal revival, but that it will be showers of blessings that will fall on others too.

May the longing expressed in that song be the desire of our heart today – “There shall be showers of blessing; O that today they might fall, now as to God we’re confessing, now as on Jesus we call!” Thank God for His daily drops of blessing. But let’s pray for the outpouring too.