A huge swath of the United States from Texas to Canada is sweltering in summer heat 10 to 15 degrees above average. Seventeen states are under heat warnings and advisories. Several cities are setting all-time temperature highs. Meanwhile, drought is withering nearly a third of the country—an enormous stretch from Arizona to the southern Atlantic states. Wildfires have claimed millions of acres of crops and forests.

Here in Oklahoma, we’re at the nexus of these two phenomena. We’ve seen 90-plus temperatures for 49 days in a row. Every day this month except one has been in the triple digits. The U.S. Drought Monitor shows that three quarters of the state is in “severe drought” and over 42 percent in “exceptional drought.” These ultra-dry conditions are killing off flora everywhere you look.

From in the midst of this blast furnace, the state governor did a simple, sensible thing: She asked people to pray for rain.

“I encourage Oklahomans of all faiths to join me this Sunday in offering their prayers for rain,” Gov. Mary Fallin said in a news release last week. “For the safety of our firefighters and our communities and the well-being of our crops and livestock, this state needs the current drought to come to an end. The power of prayer is a wonderful thing, and I would ask every Oklahoman to look to a greater power this weekend and ask for rain.”

This straightforward, commonsense statement—which at one time in America’s history would have received broad support—aroused the derision of the God haters. In television interviews, in blogs, in comments on news stories, they vented. They scorned the governor for failing to recognize proof of global warming. They mocked her as if she considers prayer a substitute for policy. Oklahomans expressed embarrassment; outsiders saw proof of the state’s backwardness.

State Sen. Rick Brinkley sought to answer the critics. “I think if people are making a joke out of this request by the governor they really don’t understand the implications of what it is she is asking for,” he said in an interview with Fox 23 out of Tulsa. “This isn’t like we would like to have a nice spring shower: We would like to stop a drought. Our farmers are facing devastation. This isn’t a flippant little request; there is a lot at stake here.”

The denigration of Governor Fallin’s simple prayer request is an ugly reminder of the hardness of the human heart. We’re in a scorching dry spell. To me, the glib irreverence in some of the comments (“the leader of the state is asking the entire state to ask the invisible sky-daddy to give us water from the clouds. What a delusional idiot”) is like a small foreshadowing of how God prophesies men will respond to the plagues of the Day of the Lord. “And men were scorched with great heat,” Revelation says, “and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues, and they repented not to give him glory.”

God does have power over the heat. He does control the spigot on the rainfall. And He is orchestrating conditions to elicit a particular response from us. The governor’s prayer request is a step in the right direction.

Such requests certainly have a distinguished pedigree in American history. Among the most eloquent and powerful came from Abraham Lincoln, who declared a day not only of prayer but also of fasting to prevent the republic from collapsing amid civil war. And he went a lot further than asking people to make a simple petition to whomever they happened to pray to. He actually corrected the nation for turning their backs on the God of “the Holy Scriptures.” He called on “all the people” to repent.

“We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation ever has grown, but we have forgotten God,” he wrote in a proclamation on March 30, 1863. “[W]e have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us! It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness” (emphasis added).

I don’t know—maybe this appeal invited chuckles from some non-believers. But the president was right, and the evidence shows the people responded. Lincoln’s faith-infused leadership steeled the nation’s heart in the midst of the crucible of a war that would have destroyed it. We need more of that kind of leadership today, not less.

Read this awesome promise God gives us in Scripture: “If I shut up heaven that there be no rain … If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land“ (2 Chronicles 7:13-14).

There’s a formula there! Prayer is a big part of it.

Notice there is more to it, though, if we are really to get results—as Lincoln seemed to understand: humbling ourselves, seeking God’s face, turning from our wicked ways. That verse in Revelation speaks of repenting and giving God glory.

Judging by the withering public response from the heart of America’s “Bible belt” to last week’s call for just one part of that formula, I’m not holding my breath.