Win The Day (7)
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· 3 viewsVincent Schaefer had a God-sized vision of creating rain by "seeding the clouds"... nothing stopped him from pursuing that dream, and it became reality in 1946. Vincent Schaefer won the day when he made it snow! We win the day when we dream "God-sized" dreams that only He can fill, and then pray unceasingly for the power of Heaven to fall on this earth!
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Seed the Clouds
Seed the Clouds
I’m sure you’ve all heard of “Seeding the Clouds”… I’m sure you know what it is…, BUT…
Do you know where it came from?
On November 13, 1946, a single-prop airplane took off from Schenectady County Airport with a rather unique payload—six pounds of dry ice—and a rather unique mission.
The pilot — a chemist named Vincent Schaeffer — had been conducting experiments at the General Electric Research Laboratory.
Using a GE freezer chilled to subzero temperatures, Schaefer created clouds using his breath as condensation… He then seeded those clouds with dry ice.
The dry ice caused a chemical reaction that caused snow crystals to form.
On November 13, 1946, it was time for a field test.
So, Schaeffer rented an airplane… flew it into a cumulus cloud … and dumped the dry ice. Eyewitnesses on the ground said it was almost like the cloud exploded!
The resulting snowfall was visible forty miles away.
The GE Monogram had a little fun with Schaeffer’s breakthrough: “Schaefer made it snow this afternoon over Pittsfield. Next week he walks on water.”
The science of seeding clouds is a marvel of modern science, but the idea is as old as the prophet Elijah.
If you have your Bibles turn with me to I Kings 18.
Let me set the scene.
It has not rained in Israel for three-and-a-half years. The People — including King Ahab — are desparate… Desperate times call for desperate measures.
That’s when and where and why the prophet Elijah climbs to the top of Mount Carmel and seeds the clouds.
Are you in 1 Kings yet? (good)
I Kings 18, starting with Verse 41.
Now… This is after Elijah has debunked the prophets of Baal… This is after ha has mocked them and made fun of their god… This is after he has had the people soak the offering… the wood… and the stone altar… not once, but three times…
This is after he has prayed for God to reveal His power and send fire to consume the offering… and God does!! But not just the offering.. the wood and stone as well!
Have you ever noticed that God doesn’t do anything small?!?
When God does things, He does things big!!!
Now what does that say about you???
Back to the story.... This is after Elijah has rounded up the prophets of Baal and taken them down to the Kishon Valley where they are killed…
Elijah looks at King Ahab and says:
1 Kings 18:41 (NIV)
41 And Elijah said to Ahab, “Go, eat and drink, for there is the sound of a heavy rain.”
Look what it says happens next…
42 So Ahab went off to eat and drink, but Elijah climbed to the top of Carmel, bent down to the ground and put his face between his knees.
Elijah didn’t go eat and drink… He didn’t go find a bed to rest… He didn’t go look for his family and go fishing…
He climbed mount Carmel, and when he got to the top… He got down on the ground an put his head between his knees!
Do you see what Elijah did?!?!
He didn’t just go find a place to kneel down and pray… He didn’t fold his hands and bow his head… He didn’t feign humility…
Elijah abased himself before God… He ingratiated himself and prayed!!!
You see… It wasn’t about him! It wasn’t about his abilities! And, it wasn’t about proving himself to be faithful and humble!
It was about what He knew God could do for His people!!!
When was the last time you prayed like that?
2 Chron 7:14 says, “If my people, who are called by My Name, will humble themselves and pray… , I will hear them…”
God does truly amazing things when we truly humble ourselves and seek Him in faith…
Elijah knew this…
Elijah knew what God could do… and he knew what God would do!!!
Look at verses 43-44:
43 “Go and look toward the sea,” he told his servant. And he went up and looked. “There is nothing there,” he said. Seven times Elijah said, “Go back.”
44 The seventh time the servant reported, “A cloud as small as a man’s hand is rising from the sea.” So Elijah said, “Go and tell Ahab, ‘Hitch up your chariot and go down before the rain stops you.’ ”
That’s Faith!!!!
No rain… In a drought for three long years… and Elijah sees one little speck of a cloud and says, “Go home! There’s gonna be a flood!”
Look at verses 45-46… I love this part!!!
45 Meanwhile, the sky grew black with clouds, the wind rose, a heavy rain started falling and Ahab rode off to Jezreel.
46 The power of the Lord came on Elijah and, tucking his cloak into his belt, he ran ahead of Ahab all the way to Jezreel.
Now.... We’re not sure what route Elijah ran, but it was no less than seventeen miles.
And… It may have been as many as thirty miles!
But… Either way, Elijah beats Ahab’s chariot!
Scripture says that: “God’s power came on Him, and Elijah outran Ahab’s chariot!”
That’s no small feat! That is like someone outrunning a Prius!!!
Long before Pheidippides ran from Marathon to Athens, Elijah ran from Mount Carmel to Jezreel.
How awesome is that!
That is Seeding the Clouds!
How do you seed the clouds?
(I’m glad you asked) It’s as simple as 1,2, 3.
1. You seed the clouds with prophetic imagination.
With Faith!!!
“I can’t, But God Can!”
When was the last time you prayed for something so big… so awesome… so huge… that it could only happen if God makes it happen?
More than half a century ago, Dr. Alfred Tomatis was confronted with the most curious case of his fifty-year career as a world-renowned otolaryngologist.
Now… an otolaryngologist is someone who works with voices…
A renowned opera singer had lost his ability to hit certain notes even though those notes were well within his vocal range.
He had been to other specialists, all of whom thought it was a vocal problem. But…
Dr. Tomatis thought otherwise. Using a sonometer, Dr. Tomatis discovered that the opera singer was producing 140-decibel sound waves at a meter’s distance.
That’s louder than a military jet taking off from an aircraft carrier.
Long story short, the opera singer had been deafened by the sound of his own voice.
He could no longer hit the notes because he could no longer hear the notes.
“The voice can only reproduce,” said Dr. Tomatis, “what the ear can hear.”
The French Academy of Medicine dubbed it the Tomatis effect and the ramifications are pretty profound.
Here’s the theory… All of us have problems—relational problems, emotional problems, spiritual problems—and we think those problems are the problem, but…
The root cause of our problems is a hearing problem —
— it’s ears that haven been deafened to the still small voice of the Holy Spirit.
How?
One reason is the white noise.
We are bombarded with news… every minute of every hour of every day.
We’ve got online advertisers … We’ve got social media algorithms designed to keep us in our own little echo chambers…
We’ve got Churches and other “Christians” telling us what we have to believe… And let’s not forget all the social agendas…
There’s so much noise all around us that It’s hard for God to get a word in edgewise. But… I don’t think this is our primary problem.
Our primary problem is our own self-talk.
We are deafened by the sound of our own voice… just like that opera singer.
We talked about this with Habit #1, Flip the Script.
About 60,000 thoughts fire across our synapses every day. According to the Cleveland Clinic, 80% of those thoughts are negative.
I’ll say it again, scripture is our script cure. It’s the way we renew our minds…
1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.
2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
We need to tell ourselves a better story.
We need to turn up the volume on God’s voice.
I’ve asked this before, It’s worth asking again.
What percentage of your thoughts, words, and actions are a regurgitation of the news media you watch and the social media you follow?
Social media is filled with algorithms designed to keep you in your own little echo chamber.
To control you… to program you… into thinking only in certain ways…
There’s no free thought!
The result is an ear that cannot hear the still small voice of the Holy spirit.
Now let me flip that script.
What percentage of your thoughts, words, and actions are the revelation you’re getting from God’s word?
We have got to be in God’s Word… We’ve got to be in God’s Presence…DAILY!!!
We’ve got to be grounded in God’s word.
Here’s why…
When we open the Bible, God opens His mouth.
Look at verse 41 again…
41 And Elijah said to Ahab, “Go, eat and drink, for there is the sound of a heavy rain.”
Elijah hears something no one else is even listening for. He trusts God… He has faith the God WILL come through… and he hears God’s still small voice reassuring him!
How?
Elijah has a prophetic ear, and that’s where a prophetic imagination starts.
Prophetic imagination is seeing the invisible, hearing the inaudible, and believing the impossible.
Walter Brueggemann says it this way. “The task is reframing so we can re-experience the realities that are right in front of us, from a different angle.”
The Apostle Paul says:
Romans 12:2 (NIV)
2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Sometimes it takes the form of supernatural gifts — like a word of wisdom or a word of knowledge.
Sometimes it takes the form of supernatural solutions — like the gift of discernment or healing.
Either way, They are God ideas.
And I’d rather have one God idea than a thousand good ideas.
How do you get God ideas?
It starts with a prophetic ear—an ear that is fine-tuned to the still small voice of the Holy Spirit.
21 Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”
This is precisely what is happening in verse 41.
It hasn’t rained in three-and-a-half years… Elijah’s forecast seems foolish. Right?
It seems like Elijah is out of touch with reality.
Those who don’t hear the music, think the dancer is mad.
When you exercise prophetic imagination, it may seem like you’re out of touch with reality because you are in touch with Heaven!
2. Seed the clouds with patient persistance.
In the first century BC, there was a drought not unlike the drought Elijah experienced.
It threatened to destroy a generation, the generation right before Jesus.
There was a man who had an Elijah anointing.
The people asked him to pray for rain and he did something curious.
He didn’t climb Mount Carmel… He took his staff, drew a circle in the sand, then he knelt inside that circle and he prayed this prayer: “Sovereign Lord, I swear before your great name, that I will not leave this circle until you have mercy upon your children.”
According to the Talmud, what drove Honi the Circle Maker was … one phrase in one verse of Scripture, Psalm 126:1. “When the LORD brought back the captives to Zion, we were like men who dreamed.”
That phrase, we were like men who dreamed, provoked a question that Honi wrestled with his entire life:
Is it possible for a person to dream continuously for their entire life?
Hold this thought.
Longitudinal studies have shown that as we age, the cognitive center of gravity tends to shift from the right-brain to the left-brain.
This may be an oversimplification… but the left brain is the locus of logic. And… The right brain is the locus of imagination.
That presents the problem: at some point, most of us stop living out of imagination and we start living out of memory.
We stop creating the future and start repeating the past.
We stop living by faith and start living by logic.
That is when we stop living and start dying.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
18 Where there is no revelation, people cast off restraint; but blessed is the one who heeds wisdom’s instruction.
The KJV says, “Without a vision, the people perish.”
Vision is a preservative!
If you have a vision, you never age out.
Vision is an expression of prophetic imagination.
But guess what? It takes patient persistence.
If you want to dream big… You have to play the long game.
One of two things happens over time.
Either memory overtakes imagination. Or imagination overtakes memory.
Imagination is the way we seed the clouds… And it takes patient persistence.
Look at verse 44.
Elijah’s sevant says: “I saw a cloud the size of a man’s hand.”
That is awfully small, but it isn’t an issue!
If you do little things like they’re big things, God will do big things like they’re little things.
You have to attempt things that are beyond your ability, beyond your resources, beyond your education, beyond your experience.
That’s where God shows up!
We have to do things that are beyond our ability… things that require God to act…
WHY?
Because they stretch our faith!
When we are faithful God WILL bless us!
It may not be right then, right there… But God will bless you somehow, someway, somewhere.
Elijah asked his servant to go look for rain “seven times.”
That is not an insignificant number!
16 for though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again, but the wicked stumble when calamity strikes.
In other words, “Don’t Give Up!”
God will see you through!!
What is the one thing that Jesus says to every church in the book of Revelation?
“To the one who is victorious...”
That is a PROMISE coupled with a call to FAITHFULNESS.
The Israelites circled Jericho seven times, and seven times on the seventh day.
Naaman dipped himself in the Jordan River seven times.
And, of course, Elijah prays for rain seven times.
They didn’t give up!!!
They didn’t pray once and throw in the towel!
They prayed faithfully and fervently… and they saw God move!
Let me ask you: What if?
What if the Israelites had stopped circling after their sixth circle on day six?
What if Naaman stopped after six dips?
What if Elijah had quit praying after his sixth attempt?
What would have happened if they had given up?!?!?!
Seeding the clouds is all about patient persistence.
Consistency beats intensity seven days a week and twice on Sunday. You keep on keeping on!
7 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
Those are present imperative verbs.
In other words, keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking.
It’s too soon to quit.
It’s too soon to give up.
EVERYTIME!!!!
3. Seed the clouds with bold prayer.
There is nothing more powerful than prayer.
A bold prayer is a prayer that is beyond your ability… beyond your resources… beyond your imagination.
In other words, you can’t do it!
It’s praying for the impossible!
It’s praying a prayer that you’ve prayed a hundred times, and God has not answered when or where or how you asked. But you don’t feel released. So… You keep praying!
I don’t know what miracle you’re believing God for, but it’s too soon to quit!
Keep seeding the clouds with faith, hope, and love!
In 853 BC, a king named Jehoram assumed the throne of Judah. He’s the fifth king of the southern kingdom.
It’s 117 years after the death of David. And this is what II Kings 8:18 says, “He did evil in the eyes of the Lord.”
He killed his brothers so he would get the throne. But that’s not the end of the story.
It says, “Nevertheless, for David’s sake, the Lord was not willing to destroy Judah.”
This is so powerful to me.
David is long gone… six kings later… God has not forgotten His promise… He has not forgotten His people!
That’s what happens when we seed the clouds.
Let me tell you:
There is no expiration date on God’s love.
There should be no expiration date on faith.
There should be no expiration date on prayer.
We have as God who loves us!
We have a God who is faithful to us!
Hear this…
We are beneficiaries of prayers we know nothing about.
We harvest fields we did not plant.
We drink from wells we did not dig.
We live in houses we did not build.
Winning the Day is rooted in HIM!!!!
God has called us to Him… He has provided the way for us… We Win The Day, THROUGH HIM!!!
THAT IS WHAT WE CELEBRATE WHEN WE RECEIVE COMMUNION...
God wants us to Win The Day…
It starts right here… At His table… receiving His gift of Grace!
(communion)