Devotional Messages

DEVOTIONAL MESSAGE

Psalm 120:1, 5-7 – In my distress I cry to the LORD, that he may deliver me: Woe is me, that I am an alien in Meshech, that I must live among the tents of Kedar.  Too long have I had my dwelling among those who hate peace.  I am for peace; but when I speak, they are for war. (NRSV)

When the drums of war are constantly rumbling, and there are no good options for response to violence, it can seem difficult to know what to pray for.  We pray for peace, of course, but in such complicated circumstances as the world faces these days, that can feel simplistic and superficial.

I have found that another way of praying has been powerful for me, a method I might call a “prayer of solidarity”.  Rather than getting overwhelmed by the magnitude of the trouble in Gaza & Israel or Ukraine or Sudan, we can focus instead on the imagined heart of one living in the midst of that turmoil.  When it comes down to it, people throughout the world are very much the same.  We want the same things; we love our families and can be fiercely protective of them.  We don’t want to be violent people, but we are passionate about the things that matter to us.  We can too easily see others as enemies, rather than as neighbors.

A prayer of solidarity invites us into the heart of someone who is living in a war zone.  It invites us to feel, if even for just a few moments, the fear, the worry and the grief of having your life turned upside down, of losing your home or your loved ones, of not knowing when things will ever get better.  A prayer of solidarity invites us to care for people far away, with the heart of Jesus who makes burdens light.  These brief lines from Psalm 120 paint such an evocative picture of what it might be like to live in a land enveloped in violence.  A prayer of solidarity reminds us that our sense of helplessness in the face of these conflicts is shared by so many whose lives are much more directly in danger than ours.  To spend some moments holding their hearts in union with ours can be very powerful.

Does a prayer of solidarity do any good?  Who can answer that?  But I believe it changes our hearts.  It can help us care about and pay attention in new ways to the news about wars in far-off lands.  It can make us more passionate about building the realm of God’s shalom.  And that is never a bad thing.