I have to be honest.
In light of everything that’s been happening around the world, it would be extremely easy to think of faith as unreliable and God as disengaged. I mean, really, where is He?
The current state of our world has driven me so desperately to my knees that the last time I remember feeling this compelled to prayer was when my parents were going through a nasty divorce and my little sisters were caught in the crossfire.
Feelings of helplessness can sometimes overwhelm.
But.
Yesterday, as I prayed for God to speak, this gentle prompting directed me to an amazing article featured on Desiring God that beautifully speaks of breakthrough, and it filled me with hope.
“The consistent pattern throughout the Bible is that every significant move of God is preceded by a season of increasingly difficult, discouraging opposition.” -Jon Bloom
Then I was directed to 2 Chronicles 7:14:
“If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
So I’m holding firm to this.
I’m trusting for this truth.
I’m standing on this promise.
I’m believing that God is on the move in our world… that this collision of crisis’s is driving the church to it’s knees…. that our eyes are being opened… that our hearts are being awakened… that are minds are arising out of complacency… that we are repenting and desperately seeing our need of a Savior… and that we’re recognizing and fully embracing our call to pray.
While I can’t stop Russia from bombing…
And I can’t heal the hatred of ISIS…
And I can’t personally rescue every single Syrian refugee…
I can pray.
I can pray for breakthrough.
I can pray for God’s power.
I can pray for the supernatural to take over.
Join me in prayer?
Dear God, we hear of peace only as a faraway dream;
we long for it in our lives, in the lives of our families,
our friends, and our countries.
But with each passing day
the prospect for peace
seems to be increasingly tantalizing.
Restlessness seems to be
the order of our present existence:
our inner restlessness rooted in various anxieties,
our societal restlessness rooted in
the evils that go on around us,
the restlessness of our world
plagued by conflicts of all sorts.
Dear God, we hear of peace only as a dream;
a dream we would love to be part of,
a dream we long to have in our hearts, in our neighbourhoods,
in our countries, and even in our churches.
We pray that we may experience that peace
that passes all understanding,
we pray, O God, that we may experience You,
the Peace of the world.
Penetrate the grieving heart,
accompany the lonely one,
remember the forgotten,
reclaim the strayed,
make music out of the
disharmony of conflict and chaos.
Let our restless hearts rest in you, O God.
This we pray in the name of the Christ,
who beckons us into the vision of Peace.
Amen.
