“To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.”  Karl Barth

I like that quote.   We can start to rise against the evils of our day from a place of prayer.  I’m guilty of underestimating the power of prayer and I’m ashamed how little I come before The Almighty with a believing heart.  The proof of our belief in God’s desire and ability to act in this world lies in our prayer life.  When persecution comes, we pray.  When devastation arrives, we pray.  When life is swaying along, we’re less apt to come.  It’s our nature to enjoy life when it’s nice to us, and go to God when it’s not.  But should this be?

Wouldn’t it please Him to recognize the wickedness of the world WITH Him everyday?  To take sides with God in a spiritual uprising against all those things evil?  To do this regularly would require a change.  It would mean a casting off of my cares, my wants.  It would mean taking on His view, by faith, embracing the nature of reality in all it’s callousness.   It would mean a certain death to become a disciple of Christ.  It sounds like a heavy and undesirable place, but that’s part of the world’s deception.

“When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer

This is a wicked world.  It is deceptive to our senses.  It would have us embrace times of prosperity as a permission slip to deny the suffering around us.  The sinful places people live, the dangerous slippery places.  Wake us up from this sleep oh Lord.  Enlist me in the battle.  Rather, help me enter it more effectively.

“There is no neutral ground in the universe; every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and counter-claimed by Satan.” CS Lewis

There can be no greater battle than the spiritual one.  All that we see with our physical eye  is but a reverberation of something greater, eternal.  To believe this is both easy and difficult.  We cannot deny this spiritual battle yet we retreat from it when we do not pray.

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. – Ephesians 6:12

Pray.  Talk to God.  Take up the fight for souls.  Do it regularly.  Do it voluntarily.  Do it by yourself, with your family and friends.  This is what the Lord is challenging me with this week.  There can be no lasting Kingdom impact without prayer, only temporary physical activity.

Bruce & Deborah Crowe
Missionaries | Ukraine