What a fearful time! Ebola may be coming into our country as I write. Islamic State forces are undaunted by the best laid plans of the American military and our friends and are generating unsuspected turmoil in the middle east. The savings we have invested are being battered by puzzling forces that reduce their value while we watch in dismay. Election battles predict ominous outcomes no matter which side wins. More real than the Halloween horrors we play at being scared by every year at this time, these dimensions of the life tapestries we are weaving these days are genuinely scary. How do you weave prayer into days that include threatening threads like these?
Prayer, for starters, reminds us that we are not alone in this moment. God is with us. When we pray, we widen our perception to see not only the scary factors but the presence of God right in the middle of it all. We can trust that God is at work calling the world to become all that it can be and to fulfil the ideal possibilities for which it was all created. God is calling us to live with hope and not to freeze or run away in fear. When we open ourselves to what God may be doing in this moment in history, we can hear what God would have us to do as an expression of faith and hope and love.
Dramatic expressions of hopeful living have come from billionaire couples – Bill and Melinda Gates and Mark Zuckerberg and his wife as they have given major gifts to organizations that are trying to contain and stop the ebola epidemic. Others are scrambling to develop medications for treating victims. Medical personnel are preparing hospitals to control cases they receive.
Prayer also gives us an opportunity to share in God’s love for not only us as individuals but for the people who are suffering now. Prayer lifts us beyond our own self-absorption. As we pray for the people of Africa who are losing family and friends and watching their communities suffer, we can share in God’s love for them and God’s suffering with them. Our love is expanded as we share in God’s love. God’s love has an opportunity to grow in us.
Praying about our own financial future may open us to what God’s will for our future planning for and use of material resources may be. Praying for others whose future security is damaged may put us in touch with God’s love for them, and lead us to practical ways to care.
One of these ways of caring is simply to pray for the people who carry the load in dealing with fearful dimensions of life. To join your good will with God’s good will for the best outcome and for the resources to do what they need to do is a way all of us can live hopefully in a fearful time. And Christian experience has been that praying for each other makes a powerful difference in hopeful directions.
Praying in fearful times can help us to live hopefully and to grow in both faith and love.
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