Maybe you're not as spiritually weak as I can be.
Maybe your prayer life is a vibrant, churning machine that never sees a break between shifts, and the prayers ascending to heaven are as beautiful and powerful and fervent as the smoke signals of a marooned sailor, rising from a deserted island, imploring the heavens to acknowledge and respond.
But I'd wager we all could stand to be reminded of something that's direly important right now.
We need to pray - hard - for a conversion.
We need to pray - hard - for some more "Sauls" to be made into "Pauls."
Linda Buxa, author, presenter, and writer who contributes blogs to the website for Time of Grace out of Milwaukee, recently pointed out:
"In Acts 8, after Stephen was stoned to death, 'on that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. . . . But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison.' "
Sounds eerily similar to what the whole world is watching transpire in Iraq in recent weeks, doesn't it? The Islamic group ISIS, a group of Muslim extremists, is ravaging their lands with what journalists are calling a genocide of Christians. I'm betting you all know all about this plotline. Many of you probably know some of the details even better than I. Many of you probably also have come to familiarity with the picture above, of the Arabic nun, their letter "N," which has been written upon the homes of the Christians (over there, "Nazarenes") who are to be victimized by this horrifying onslaught of forcible conversion.
As is so often the case when gut-wrenching, horrible crimes against humanity are taking place around the globe - or in this case, crimes against people who truly are fellow believers to us American Christians - don't we find ourselves almost numb to it? Part of it, I think, is that element of deplorable desensitization that Americans in this day and age are all subject to. Unless you've lived abroad for a significant amount of time, or have done so recently enough for the experience to be fresh in your mind and heart, you've got little frame of reference to understand and focus on someone else's sufferings or overall standard of life. This, however, isn't my point. After all, if we could snap our fingers and make it happen, I'm sure many of us who haven't had the experience (like me) would be teleported over to some place that's "third world" and either passively witness and take it all in, or even pitch in actively with acts of service.
The other piece of why we're numb to what's happening to Christians over in that land, I believe, is that we tend to forget the power we have, as Christians, to at least DO what we CAN DO.
Since social media creates a spreading wildfire effect with any prevalent ideas or comments to current events (whether it's this story, or the one that seems to be neck-and-neck with it, the sudden passing of actor/comedian Robin Williams), it's not that there's been a shortage of solid ideas for how we can respond to this genocide in Iraq.
Well-meaning folks have offered generally a 3-pronged approach to what we, who stand at a great distance and observe it as if it were "Schindler's List," can actually do:
1) PRAY
2) GIVE - to some organization actively involved, on the ground, with aid in Iraq
3) SPREAD AWARENESS - using social media, talking about it in public, etc.
Points #2 and #3 on this list are both just fine, in my opinion. I think whatever implementation one can achieve of those parts is a great contribution. CERTAINLY far better than just sighing, shaking the head, saying something as calloused and cliche as "What a messed up world we're in..." and moving on in the news feed or going back to whatever task is at hand. Back to life as usual. Back to comfort.
What I say we can all do, is focus on #1. PRAY. Pray like the dickens. And pray for something specific.
What's my specific idea? For God to give strength and courage of faith's conviction to those being persecuted? For our military to have the opportunity to intervene and somehow, for crying out loud, just rescue the children at least...so no more innocent little ones are ripped from their family's arms and beheaded? For there to be more caring people worldwide giving of their personal wealth to finance the aid being deployed by charitable organizations over in that land, to give some relief and show compassion?
Yes, a resounding YES, to all of these. But here's what I'm proposing:
PRAY FOR SOME MORE "SAULS" TO BE CONVERTED INTO "PAULS."
Like we said above, as documented in Acts 8, something like this has happened before, and the Bible itself spoke of it. It's happened many times throughout history, because Satan has been continually trying to fight the tide of salvation that has always washed across the earth, bringing people of all tribes and nations to the Christian, saving faith.
And I believe what happened in Acts 9 can happen again. Saul, who was "breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples," was headed toward Damascus and was confronted by Jesus himself, which left Saul blinded by the light of God's glory, and after he was cared for medically God reinstated him back into the public, and he had a new heart, a new mission, and a new name - Paul.
I don't know if God would seek to operate in exactly the same theatrical fashion, making Jesus himself appear, riding a bright and shining war horse, and convert all of ISIS by knocking them to their knees in terror and then pleading with them to stop persecuting his true believers...But I know he could.
And whether the Lord would do it that way, or by means of regular mortals, maybe even the men and women and children they're carrying out these horrifying acts against, someone testifying to them at the right moment and creating a ripple effect of more subtle, yet overwhelming change within that organization, the point is: Why not??
I've thought it myself, and I've heard it or seen it posted online from plenty of people. "If only we could just drop a bomb on all those devils." Well, have Americans used deadly force to quell horrible acts and warfare in the past? Yeah, absolutely. But just because we'd all agree that it was a good thing America helped in ending Hitler's horrible scheme in Europe, consequently bringing Hitler himself to an earthly end, doesn't mean that Christians in 1945 shouldn't have been praying for his salvation too.
God may have any number of ways He could plan to use this passage in history to accomplish His grand design for mankind and for the spread of the gospel. I'm just proposing that we pray that even the evil men who are responsible for terrible crimes against these Nazarenes in Iraq be made the object of a worthy prayer.
God did it before, with Saul of Tarsus in the first century A.D., and it can happen again.
But is the problem that we don't want it to happen to these ISIS malefactors? Do we want to see earthly judgment served and equally violent retribution poured out on them in wrath? Maybe... Or is it because we don't believe this could happen again?
If you're anything like me, sometimes you have to shake yourself out of that weird mindset that something we read about in Biblical history was insulated from the rest of "real" world history, or from what happens in these days, in current times. Why? Why do we believe that God was different then, for all of those thousands of years, with all of those millions and millions of other real life people - believers or otherwise? It's kind of the Sunday-school-lesson effect, where everything from those pages of ancient Scripture made into coloring books with Bible passages and crafts assigned to them, is diminished from the real life we all live right now, and right here (or right there - i.e. Iraq, where the blood of Christians is moistening the soil as we speak).
God cannot be put in a box. He cannot be limited or characterized by what we humans think of Him based on our understanding from our cultural context or upbringing and brand of faith. God is a God of possibility, a God without limits, and a God who has always wanted His people to cry out with one unified voice over the things that impact this world most, pleading with Him for His will to be done in the ways we believe HE CAN.
What if God turned the hearts of many - or even just some, or EVEN JUST A FEW - of the ISIS radicals? What if that helped to stem the tide of violence and hatred and bloodshed? What if that led to other Muslims, whether extremists or not, being persuaded to faith in the one true God? What if THAT happened because millions of other Christians, American or otherwise, took the time to think on it, get down on their knees at their bedsides, and prayed hard, asking God to make it so?
If that could happen - and we must believe it could - wouldn't it remind us all, and show the whole world, what power we wield in the form of prayer?
Wouldn't it remind us all, and show the whole world, what a powerful and merciful God we believe in?
Brothers and sisters, anyone, everyone who believes...Let's PRAY.
Let's pray hard, let's pray specifically....Let's mean it....
God Almighty, if it's your will, turn those evil "Sauls" into new "Pauls."
"The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective." - James 5:16b
