I geared up for my ride to work today, feeling a refreshing, almost Autumnal chill as I stepped out of the garage and into the muted light of pre-sunrise dawn – I’d surely need a jacket and gloves this morning. Attaching my helmet, I noticed the grass in the lawn, each green blade – as if bowing to its creator – slightly bent with tiny hoary droplets of dew. And minutes later as I was on my way, I glanced over to see a wooded hillside with a compact, smoke-like ball of fog. Yet its glory brought a new chill to me: in so many ways the rising fog looked like wisps of smoke, and reminded me of the fresh images of bomb drops on northern Israel that I had seen on the news just moments before leaving.
I realize this is a similar opening to the one I’ve used before; yet for good reason: my feeling of privilege and awe mingled with the urgent sense of needing to cry out for those in turmoil was almost the same as the other week. “Kittens” solution is going to have to wait another day. I want to fast-forward to the bottom line and ask you to pray or weep for the children of the horrible conflict between Jews and Arabs.
"But it seems hopeless..."One of my problems in praying for world-wide events has often been based on two overwhelming facts:
- God is in control anyway, and
- I’m so small.
Perhaps this fatalism is writ even larger when the antagonists are Zion and Ishmael – with animosities recorded back to Biblical times. I’ve wondered, and perhaps you have too: is this merely setting the stage for a final conflict in which all the world is arrayed against Israel? I don’t ever want to be predicting apocalypse – we don’t know any of the times or seasons – and this may be a small piece of what is foretold. But certainly world opinion, and especially that of those who surround Israel, is becoming monotonically negative towards her with every calculated or errant strike made in Lebanon. Mistakes are being made, and capitalized upon; the propaganda machines are in full tilt. Certainly if photographer Adnan Hajj managed to slip some slanted, doctored photos by
Reuters, you can be sure this is the tip of the ideological iceberg. We hear daily of Arab sentiment (astonishingly) turning towards Hezbollah – we shake our heads in dismay as the roots of this bitter weed of resentment grow deeper.
And our local editorial pages are filled with predictable sneering contempt for Israeli politics from those on the more liberal side of our river. Sometimes I wonder – if the U.S. elects one of the top Democratic contenders in ’08, will the U.S. also become increasingly insensitive to Israel’s plight? Would the tenuous support in England also evaporate?
While I don’t think Israeli leaders did the right thing at the right time, her plight is unmistakable, as is the horror of the hundreds of thousands of innocent Lebanese civilians now caught in a crossfire largely enabled by the ineptitude and corruption of their government - and of the impotence of the U.N. peacekeeping force, which has allowed Hezbollah to incubate under their oversight for over two decades (see
comments by Timur Goksel, “who watched Hezbollah grow into a potent force during 25 years as a senior adviser to the U.N. observer force along the Israeli-Lebanese border”)
Praying God’s willThe temptation, then - if it’s all foreknown, if it’s all “God’s will” – is to move on with our merry lives, ignore the pain and suffering; “hope” that it’ll all go away, root for one side or another, and quite frankly, if we’re honest with ourselves, become secretly gratified that it’s not us in the conflict. A heart calloused by years of feeding upon devastation will resort to the one sin we can most easily excuse – apathy.
I suggest that even a world-sized circumstance – like this one, propelled by irascible popular militias and bumbling, error-prone governments; or where it almost seems that the hand of God himself is bent upon destruction – is not more foreknown or foreordained, than the daily issues we can pray so readily about. I suppose I have to agree with
Yoda here – “size matters not.” Indeed all things are fully set under God’s sovereignty – yet we are commanded to pray. Why?
A recent sermon by our senior pastor,
Pat Curtis, on
John 11 showed Jesus’ compassion. Here we see a Jesus facing Lazarus' sisters, fully planning to raise Lazarus from the dead, but dealing first with their belief and understanding. What strikes us as odd, particularly since as the readers we know of Jesus' Lordship, is that Jesus, in verse 35, would weep. He certainly wouldn’t be weeping for Lazarus, who Jesus knows is about to be brought to life!
Pat’s suggestion, and the only logical answer I can see, is that Jesus is deeply moved in great compassion for these people – weeping over the devastating effects of sin on human life. In a kind of groaning which knows no words, perhaps we can see Jesus weeping over the unbelief in the crowd; over the searing pain of death and disease, caused by our sin; but even more so, perhaps it’s in part because now that the Light has come to the world, He knows we are
even more without excuse for our unbelief and rejection of Him.
God’s will is that none would perish. The more I can pray in his will, the more I believe I will find myself weeping for those caught in the path of devastation; and the more I’ll be praying for God’s intervention in the lives of as many as who would come to him. The more I can pray in his will, the more I’ll pray that the cycle of hatred will stop with this generation; and the more I’ll know that God’s sovereign plan will leave nobody behind who can be saved.
It doesn’t “feel” like much, but our human heart is a liar. God says that “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”
(James 5:16). That refers to us in Christ Jesus!
I hope to talk more about the apparent (yet I believe false) dilemma between God’s unchangeable sovereignty and our prayers’ ability to exercise “great power.” In the meantime, I’ll pray for those caught in this cycle of violence, loss, and festering hatred. Please join.
