I’m writing this letter to you just two days after the unspeakable Manchester massacre occurred and its gut-wrenching images of children too-soon and so brutally gone continue to circle the globe. I am a Mom and I’m heart-broken. No doubt, whoever you are, your heart breaks, too. How much more God’s heart must break as He looks down on His creation seemingly gone amok.

Since I don’t have the presence of mind to write anything profound at the moment, I’m borrowing a thought from an article I wrote which was published in Charisma Magazine in October, 1991. Amazing how principles based on the Word are timeless! It’s entitled, “PRAYING THE HEADLINES” and opens with this quote I found in the front leaf of my precious Mothers Bible:

“Karl Barth, a great Swiss theologian of the early 20th Century, once said, ‘Christians with God’s heart for the world pray with the Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other.’”

Of course, in today’s world it would be said, “…with a smartphone or iPad…” or whatever. So, I can’t imagine any more important reason for intercessors to be on constant alert than to respond with urgent appeals to Heaven simultaneously with events going viral across the world EVEN AS THEY ARE HAPPENING.

I’m quick to admit, though, that facing a glut of cold, horrific facts of life on Planet Earth these days is a huge discipline for me. Being a peacemaker at heart, I really have to determine to swallow the hard lump in my throat, flex my spiritual muscle and PRAY THE NEWS WITH THE NEWS – weeping with those who weep or warring against the enemy – or both. As in Karl Barth’s message,

I am called to feel God’s heart.

 And so are you.

Selah…

…for such a (tumultuous!) time as this,

 

 

 

Esther