Ask Wednesday: Does it help to pray for weather?

What do you think?

By Morris Dean

I turn the question back to you, because I don't really know, although I admit that I confidently assume it doesn't help to pray for weather. Do you pray for weather? Do you find it useful?
    I suppose it's possible that praying for weather might buoy up a person's sense of being in some sort of control – praying for weather as a form of magical thinking. I guess that "helps" such a person in some way, but the way I look at it, the person would be helped more by being disabused of that sort of thinking.
    Anyway, the photo below of a church parking lot board was sent to us by one of our correspondents. The pastor saw an opportunity to poke gentle humor at parishioners who seriously believe that prayer can influence the weather.

    Out of curiosity, I did a Google photo search on "whoever is praying for snow." You'd be amazed how many times that shows up.

• Several Baptist churches have had it (First, South End, Calverton), but also 
• a Church of God, 
• a Church of Christ,
• an Assembly of God,
• an Anglican Church,
• a Free Methodist Church,
• the Carlisle United Methodist Church, 
• the Fourteen Holy Helpers Church (I had never heard of that one, but I found out a bit about the fourteen),
• the Terryville Congregational Church,
• the Lafayette Church of the Nazarene, 
• the Wasaga Beach United Church, 
• the Westridge United Methodist Church, 
• the Zion Pentecostal Tabernacle Church, and 
• the Grosse Pointe Woods Presbyterian Church, which even referred to a Bible verse (James 5:16, which is rendered in the King James Bible: "Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much"; they actually seem to believe that praying for weather works in Grosse Pointe – that is, if a righteous man prays fervently enough).

    And some people had the sign in their yard – or on their T-shirt or hoodie, or on a greeting card. Even a bank parking lot had it.
    And, hey, we have it here too.

Copyright © 2015 by Morris Dean