Tools for Monday: Confronting Crises through Prayer
If you are anxious about current events, you’re not alone. Former Defense Secretary, Bob Gates, recently announced that the United States is now facing the greatest conflagration of crises since World War 2. It’s amazing how a conflict thousands of miles away impacts our daily lives in such profound ways. And the dominoes of anxiety keep falling. Where they stop, no one seems to know. In fact, you may have heard about a major faux pas at the Michigan State football game last Saturday, as a picture of Hitler was projected on the stadium screen. Why someone would ever find it appropriate to do such a thing boggles the mind, especially when we are already walking on eggshells.
How then shall we live? This article provides neither catchy prescriptions nor pithy sayings for overcoming anxieties. It is sufficient for us to advise prayer, and lots of it. But for what or whom shall we pray? Jesus’ instructions remain clear: Pray reverently for God’s will to be done (Matthew 6:5-15).
Praying for God’s will to be done helps us arrive at three helpful realizations. First, surrendering ourselves to God in prayer places us in a position of submission. When we pray for God to do all he can and wills, we resist the temptation to require God to work in any particular way (especially our way). We are consequently ready to pray in unity with God’s will.
Second, submissive prayer prevents us from “numbing out,” so to speak. When times get tough, our society often prescribes escapism or even hedonism. Others place their trust in supposed human progress, that things will just naturally work out somehow. The remedy we need however is the cross and resurrection. Praying for God’s will to be done therefore is realistic and hopeful.
Third, praying for God’s will to be done keeps us watchful. God may just answer your prayer! His answers can come in unexpected and surprising ways, but come they will. Be watchful today after you cast your cares on him.