Certainty and Uncertainty

This past week, I have sat down with my laptop to write more times than I can count.  It felt like a recurring dream when my ankles are bound with barbed wire.  Not unable to walk or run, but unable to write.  My heart has been so tangled in the images emerging from the Ukraine.  Over the course of the days since the invasion, I have been caught between a pressing need to write and an urgency to pray.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Even waking in thin hours of the night, I am so aware of the David and Goliath situation in the Ukraine, the tragedy, families with small children huddling in subway tunnels, the bombs, the tanks, and the sheer resistance of a noble people seeking freedom and peace. 

I feel so helpless to do anything.  But I can pray.  We can all pray.

Moreover, as for me,

far be it from me

that I should sin against the LORD

by ceasing to pray for you.

                  1 Samuel 12.23

If we don't pray, we will never realize the difference it is making in this time of tremendous unknown, for those we will never meet in this life, and not just for when it impacts us.  God calls us to be faithful and pray for one another. No exclusions. I cannot go about my daily life as if nothing on the other side of the world is going on.

In that crevice between possibility and impossibility, between expected and unexpected, between certainty and uncertainty, prayer fills the spaces and powerfully pushes back the darkness.  Prayer is the highest form of resistance.  Prayer aligns our hearts with His.  Pray continually for God's intervention in this physical and spiritual battle.  A lot of people's lives are at stake.

"There is a high degree of uncertainty about what will happen in the coming days," stated the New York Times this morning.  

But there is an even higher dimension of certainty about God, even right in the midst of the turmoil.  Our hope is not wishful thinking for a particular outcome, but on the Almighty on Whom we can stake our lives.  No matter the circumstances. 

For we are powerless

against this great horde

   that is coming against us.

We do not know what to do,

but our eyes are on You.

            2 Chronicles 20.12