Praying with a Painting: Let it rain

In the typical fashion of island weather, I’m sitting here enjoying the sunbeams streaming into my study. But this morning I walked to the gym in pelting, cold rain. It was a bit miserable, the experience at least woke me up.

I love this painting of Paris in the rain by my dad. He says it’s a large canvas and as it met with my mother’s approval, it hangs in their kitchen. I find it so evocative.

Might you use it as a springboard for prayer? Here are a few verses from Scripture (the NIV) you could ponder as you pray:

Sow righteousness for yourselves, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the LORD, until he comes and showers his righteousness on you. (Hosea 10:12)

“You heavens above, rain down my righteousness; let the clouds shower it down. Let the earth open wide, let salvation spring up, let righteousness flourish with it; I, the LORD, have created it. (Isaiah 45:8)

As the rain and the snow
    come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
    without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
    so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
    It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
    and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. (Isaiah 55:10–11)