10:1 showers of rain. “Ask, and it shall be given you” (Matthew 7:7). This promise of rain, although specifically referring to the restoration of the ancient rainfall cycle to Israel, after long centuries of aridity, indicates that it is appropriate to pray for rain when rain is needed. Although rainfall is a natural phenomenon, controlled by natural causes, God can providentially organize the complex of causes in such a way that, when properly combined, they will yield rainfall. The same would be true of any other natural phenomenon. Such providential miracles—not requiring a suspension of the divinely-established laws of nature, but rather special organizing of the forces which produce the phenomenon—are frequently encountered in Scripture (note James 5:17-18).