We looked at the last event of the mount Carmel confrontation. It is Elijah telling Ahab to go eat and drink because the famine is about to end. Elijah announces this as the sound of the rushing of rain. It is pretty clear from the text this sound was not something they were hearing at that moment. What is important about this statement is the confidence Elijah has in the promise of God. God had told Elijah to go see Ahab and He would send the rain. Elijah does this and believes what God has said will happen will happen. Elijah goes and prays after this for the rain to come. We see a persistence in Elijah’s prayer. He sends his servant to look to the east for a rain cloud as he prays. He does this seven times. Until the servant returns with the announcement of a cloud in the distance the size of a man’s hand rising from the ocean. This is a points us to the importance of praying for God’s promises even when we know He is going to do something. There is still a need to pray even if we know it is going to come to pass. We see this in Jesus life as He prayed to the Father for things which were intended. We see this Revelation at the end of the book when Jesus promises He will return soon and John responds by praying, “Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!” This last mount Carmel event really emphasizes the importance of consistently and earnestly praying for the things God has promised. There are a lot of reasons we can state for the importance of this but probably the most important is prayer is a means by which the glory of God is manifested. When God’s people pray and things happen it is clearly God who is seen as taking action. It is God who is glorified. This should be our heartbeat and our prayer.
