{"id":8260,"date":"2015-04-07T17:24:29","date_gmt":"2015-04-07T21:24:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dougbittinger.com\/thoughts\/?p=8260"},"modified":"2025-04-21T01:56:39","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T05:56:39","slug":"umbrellas-of-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/umbrellas-of-faith\/","title":{"rendered":"Umbrellas of Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was a church in a mid-western farming community that had not received rain in a long while.\u00a0 The crops were withering and the farmers feared economic disaster.<\/p>\n

The Pastor of this church announced, \u201cNext Sunday we will have a special prayer service where anyone who wants to can offer a prayer for rain.\u00a0 Be sure you come prepared.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Umbrella<\/a>The following Sunday, most of the service was given over to allowing members to lead the congregation in prayers for rain.\u00a0 When all who wanted to had taken a turn, the pastor stood again before them and said, \u201cThose were some mighty fine prayers.\u00a0 Most were heart-felt, a couple were down right eloquent.\u00a0 Now, by show of hands, how many of you brought an umbrella to church today?\u201d<\/p>\n

No one raised their hand.\u00a0 Most looked at one another in astonishment over the Pastor’s question.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat, my friends, is why we don’t have rain. I told you to come prepared.\u00a0 If you believed your prayers would be heard and answered, you’d have brought an umbrella to get you home in the rain.\u201d<\/p>\n

His abbreviated sermon was about acting in faith and asking in faith. If we do not believe it will be granted, what’s the point in praying?\u00a0 The Holy Spirit, which is the power of God in this world, does amazing things when we ask with a pure heart and an expectant spirit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There was a church in a mid-western farming community that had not received rain in a long while.  The crops were withering and the farmers feared economic disaster. The Pastor of this church announced, “Next Sunday we will have a special prayer service where anyone who wants to can offer a prayer for rain.  Be … Continue reading “Umbrellas of Faith”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[72,4],"class_list":["post-8260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-matters-of-faith","tag-faith","tag-inspiration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8260"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19966,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8260\/revisions\/19966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}