By James Wilson
Lots of good things are happening in California this month. Drought relief has been falling from the skies since December. (We remain mega short of replenishing the state’s water supply; that alone will signify the end of our drought.) El Nino – the Christ Child – is anchored off-shore and the warm water current is living up to its reputation. In my region alone Lake Shasta rose twenty-two feet in one weekend; it has risen fifty feet since last December; projections call for ninety per cent full by Memorial Day.
It has been twenty years since California had such a wet winter and El Nino was on hand then too. The catch is meteorologists know El Nino brings abundant rain while it actually inhibits snowfall. It is the snowfall we desperately need for runoff to replenish California’s giant aquifer that has been so depleted. But wait – snowpacks are at or near normal all over the state. Can it be the scientists don’t comprehend El Nino? Or is there another dynamic at work?
1996 is not the only time we have been visited by El Nino in the past two decades; on other occasions there was much rain and little snow. But the winter of ’96 found a lot of California Christians praying desperately. They prayed because there was so much rain we feared catastrophic flooding. Our soils were saturated and the next – due the next day – promised disaster. A wildly improbable cold snap hit, turning disastrous rain turned into desperately needed snow. Explain it? Try God. This phenomenon looked, quacked, and waddled like…God.
Several thousand Californians prayed in 2015, tracking with vision the Lord released through PrayNorthState in 2014. The idea was a Day of Repentance for California. Grounded in conviction our drought could not be explained in natural terms – the high pressure air ridge of physical causation does not linger in nature as it did over California – I turned to 2 Chronicles 7. There God says when He shuts the rain off it is because of human sin; the solution He provides is repentant prayer. I knew California led the nation in shedding innocent blood – abortion and suicide, idolatry – of technology and New Age thought, sexual sin – pornography and human trafficking, and covenant breaking – from native American treaties to divorce. I went to the grassroots – one person and e-mail at a time. Though many ignored the call many more caught the vision. By summer 2015 preparations had been made for fasting and prayer lasting fifty-two days – as in the Book of Nehemiah – and Oregon and Washington had signed on for a West Coast Trifecta of Repentance, rolling days in each state set for September. Eventually Alaska and British Columbia joined what would become known as the Western Wall of Prayer encompassing the whole West Coast.
What is the fruit? God has indeed opened the heavens with rain and snow. But the drought has been economic, political, cultural and spiritual; so has the fruit of repentance.
In my own region this past year more than fifty successful start-up businesses birthed in a city of one hundred thousand; they are growing exponentially. There is a new spirit of cooperation in city and county government; I recently attended a political campaign launch to hear the candidate lauding these start-ups. She also commended non-profits like the rescue mission – transitioning more than four hundred transients into productive life in the last year alone – and the restorative justice coalition – launching nearly seventy former inmates into responsible and employable citizenship in 2015. (Their recidivism rate is 11% compared to the general rate of 50%.) This too fulfills prophecy we released a few years back.
In California the film community has released a comparative landslide of God honoring and well-made productions from When the Game Stands Tall, God’s Not Dead and Woodlawn to the current Risen and Spotlight – to name a few. San Diego reports a major league revival breaking out featuring multitudes of healings and decisions for Christ; predictions are it will sweep up the state. This too fulfills prophecy we released a decade ago.
Don’t get me wrong. I in no way claim these good things occur because of prophecy or prayer. God alone does what God alone can do. But He does love the sounds of repentance, worship, and the declaration of what we see Him doing. It is His pleasure to respond to the humble prayer and approach of His people. He has called for a culture and season of repentance – for years – in the people who are called by His Name and we have only scratched the surface of the thoroughgoing repentance we need if we are even to recognize Him in our midst. But we can declare with confidence that the unexplainable phenomena we see are the rumor of His passing. And we can redouble our effort to re-focus our attention on Him and follow up on His initiatives in our world.
Atheist George Bernard Shaw said, “Some people look at the way things are and say ‘Why?’ I look at the way things could be and say, “Why not?” It doesn’t take faith to ask such a visionary question. But only people of faith – and the God to Whom we turn – can do anything about answering it.
James A. Wilson is the author of Living As Ambassadors of Relationships, The Holy Spirit and the End Times, and Kingdom in Pursuit – available at local bookstores or by e-mailing him at praynorthstate@charter.net
