Last Friday, we traveled into the city to take our children back-to-school shopping. We made a day of it. Visited multiple shops. Went out for lunch. Mastered their lists. It was a perfectly normal day. Except it wasn’t. You see, in the back of my mind, choosing backpacks, eating lunch, loading groceries, pumping gas, was the constant awareness that across the globe, in a country I have only heard about, people are experiencing days so far removed from any concept of normal.
It is nearly impossible to pick up a newspaper, open the Internet, or turn on your television without being bombarded by accounts of the horrific happenings taking place in Afghanistan. Normally, I shy away from writing about the news, but for so many days–weeks–my broken heart has read the stories and been shattered over and over again. My mind cannot turn off the thoughts of people in peril. All the people. Christians. Non-Christians. Normal people doing normal things. Fathers attempting to scrape out a living for their families. Mothers doing their best to care for their children. Teenagers learning the ways of the world around them, dreaming, making choices for their futures. Children playing made-up games, laughing in spite of bleak circumstances. As the tenuous stability of their world crashed down around them, my heart was gutted on their behalf. My urgent prayers have been continual, the requests varied.
I have battered Heaven on behalf of the Christians facing worsened persecution. I think of them first, my imagination wild with thoughts of what may be in store for them. As a grade-schooler, I listened to a camp meeting speaker from a region that did not embrace the Gospel. It takes only a moment for my mind to travel back to that service and replay the words he spoke. Words of torture, torment, and terror reigned down on believers in his country, spoken in gross detail to indelibly imprint on our minds. Decades have passed since I heard those words. They are as clear today as they were when I sat frozen in terror, sick to my stomach, listening to his accounts. As recent events trigger that memory, my stomach twists and my shattered heart desperately implores the God of the universe, the Father of us all, to protect, deliver, rescue. If God wills it. (Ephesians 4:6; I Corinthians 8:6; John 5:14; Matthew 6:10)
Admittedly, I can barely push those words past my tightened throat. My heart doesn’t want to say them. I want mountains filled with heavenly warriors, enemies who fight themselves, seas that part for salvation only to crash down for enemy elimination. The flippant prayers of, “Thy will be done,” prayed over which job to take, car to buy, or how much to give in the collection plate become the hardest to pray when someone’s life hangs in the balance. They echo with surrender. They speak of letting go and trusting God. They highlight human impotence, illuminate our inability to change circumstances or end suffering. They force us to, however hesitantly, subject ourselves, our situations, our brothers and sisters in faraway lands to the omniscient omnipotence of God whose goal is to lift up Jesus so all the world might have the opportunity to know Him. It’s the reason He came. (John 12:32; I Timothy 1:15; Exodus 14; II Kings 6:15-17; I Samuel 14:20)
So I dutifully pray those words, even though my heart breaks and balks because I know God’s ways are not like mine. I gather up my waning strength and lift up those Christians facing persecution we simply do not comprehend. I pray for the underground churches and pastors, beseeching God for strength and peace, and boldness. I pray for the helpless, the elderly, the infirm. I pray for the men and women, believers or not, caught in this terrifying scenario of insurrection and instability. My mother’s heart quakes and nearly faints at the thought of women trying to protect, hide, and console their children, quiet their cries, calm their fears. My eyes fill at the thought of teenagers watching their life dreams die on the altar of someone else’s selfishness. When my anguished heart can take no more news, no more thoughts, no more feelings of helplessness, I do the only thing I can–I place those precious people, their homes, their families, their lives in the capable hands of a loving God who cares more for them than I ever could and fervently entreat Him to do something. It’s all I can do. (John 15:12-13; Ephesians 3:18-19; Psalm 68:5; John 15:9)
At least I thought it was. Until, as I feebly searched my mind to ensure I had prayed for every possible needy soul, a little voice spoke to my heart. You know the one. The voice that tells you things. Hard things. True things. Things you don’t want to hear. The voice of God. In this moment it whispered, “Pray for the perpetrators, the persecutors.” (Matthew 5:44-45)
The words caused my prayer to stumble. They shouldn’t have. I’ve been hearing them for years. When I read of abusers, murderers, pedophiles. When I am wronged. When my initial response is to hope for the worst, God reminds me to pray for the perpetrators. Pray for those society calls hopeless. Pray for the ones deemed too evil to live. Pray for the brat, the bully, the remorseless criminal, the angry insurgent. Jesus instructs us, “Pray for those who persecute you.” And I do. (Matthew 5:44)
Unfortunately, having done so in the past and knowing that Jesus Himself instructs us to do so, does not make the prayers easier to pray. I’d much rather give heavenly air time to the persecuted, perplexed, demoralized, and abused. I’d like to see God step in and stop the events. I want to see my form of justice served. Just once, I want to call down the wrath of God and see an amazing response. Something like the earth opening to swallow the sons of Korah! But my justice is not God’s justice, nor is it my place to mete out that justice. Vengeance is God’s. He’ll take care of it. He has a purpose for keeping the ground intact. (Numbers 16:31-33; Isaiah 55:8-9; Romans 12:17-21; Deuteronomy 32:35)
My mind ruminates over the possibilities of that purpose. What could God possibly want with a bunch of people threatening, abusing, murdering His followers? Immediately, the Apostle Paul comes to mind. He started out as Saul. Groomed to be a zealot for the temple leaders of his day, he was the cloak minder as stones flew from outraged hands toward Stephen. He likely heard the final prayer before Stephen fell asleep in Jesus. Words similar to the ones echoing from the cross on Golgotha. Words of grace for the persecutors, “Don’t hold this sin against them, Lord.” (Acts 7:54-60)
It seems to have no effect. Saul grew into a deplorable human being with a well-earned horrendous reputation. No one wanted his knock at their door. Searching down Christians. Speaking threats and evil and hate toward them. Dragging them from their homes. Sending them to prison, even death. It appears Stephen’s prayer fell on deaf ears.(Acts 8:1-3; 9:1-2)
It didn’t. Eventually, via an amazing Damascus road experience, a bout of blindness, and the hospitality of Christians, Saul became Paul, preacher, missionary, sufferer for Christ. He reached lands others hadn’t reached. He testified to people in powerful positions others would never have had the opportunity to speak with. His story is an amazing example of how God uses the prayers we pray over our enemies, even if we can’t immediately put a face to our prayers. Even when we don’t see results. Even if we never know the outcome. (Acts 9:3-19; 16:6-10; Acts 24-26; I Corinthians 3:6-8)
The truth is this. God might be trying to reach that teenager brandishing a gun who has been relentlessly brainwashed to believe war and hate and fighting are the path of life. God might be extending mercy and grace to a hardened warrior before his final battle. Maybe, just maybe, one of those men waving the edge of a knife in the face of a Christian needs to see their faith in God to shake him out of his stupor, make him lay down his weapon, and follow Jesus. Maybe the prayers of good people for the souls of evil people is their only hope of ever finding the God who isn’t willing that any should perish. No one. Not you. Not me. Not the persecutor. Not the perpetrator. God intended no one–not one single soul–should die in their sins. So He sent Jesus to bear our sins, die on the cross, and personally tell us, “Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you.” (Matthew 5:43-48; II Peter 3:9; Ezekiel 18:32; John 6:40; Revelation 3:20)
You might be scoffing right now. Maybe you believe I’ve lost my mind. Perhaps you think God isn’t interested in saving some terrorists or insurgents or persecutors of his people. Maybe you’ve marked them as too far gone, a waste of grace. I hope you’ll go read Saul turned Paul’s story again. And again. And again. I hope you’ll read the story of Jesus, hanging on a cross, forgiving the last-minute confessions of the thief beside Him. I hope you’ll read the stories and remember. Remember that Jesus came to call everyone to repentance. Not just the nice people. Not just the attendees at your church or people of like mindsets. Jesus came for everyone. You. Me. The peaceful citizen. The angry insurgent. Jesus came to save sinners. All of us. (Luke 5:32; Mark 2:17; John 1:12; Revelation 22:17; Isaiah 55:1)
No matter how powerless you feel to ease the pain and suffering of a country half a world away, this is no time to do nothing. We must do something. We must do the only thing we can, wield the most powerful weapon in our arsenal. We must pray. Relentlessly. Fervently. We must not become distracted. As the battle rages and time passes, other things may begin to fill our minds and dominate our prayers. I hope you don’t stop praying for the people of Afghanistan. I hope you don’t stop praying fervent prayers of hope and peace and courage and strength over the Christians there. I hope you don’t stop praying for help and comfort for the people as they flee and hide or stand and fight. And I hope, if you aren’t already, that you pray for the perpetrators of persecution. Pray for a Damascus road experience for them. Pray that they turn from their evil ways. Pray in faith, knowing that the God who wants all people to be saved, can work miracles in the hardest of hearts and the most ruined of lives. Pray. Because when God’s people join together to do something, God shows up too. And He can do anything! (James 5:16; I Thessalonians 5: 16-18; Matthew 18:19-20; I Peter 3:12; I John 5:14-15)