1 Samuel 12

1 Samuel 12:16-18

That mighty deed Samuel is said to have accomplished through prayer is something that everyone who genuinely relies on God can accomplish spiritually even now, since he has become worthy of being heard.… For every saint and genuine disciple of Jesus is told by the Lord, "Lift up your eyes, and see how the fields are already white for harvest. He who reaps receives wages and gathers fruit for eternal life." In this time of harvest the Lord does "a great thing" before the eyes of those who hear the prophets. For when the one adorned with the Holy Spirit calls to the Lord, God gives from heaven thunder and rain that waters the soul, so that he who once was in evil may stand in great awe of the Lord and his minister of goodness, manifested as venerable and august by the requests that are heard. And Elijah, who shut up heaven for the wicked for three and a half years, later opened it. This, too, is always accomplished for everyone who through prayer receives the rain of the soul, since the heavens were previously deprived of it because of his sin. — ON PRAYER 13.5