PRAYER REQUEST: My long-time friend, Alex, hopes to have an opportunity to share the gospel with his Mom this Christmas. PRAY that her heart would be open and that she might respond to the invitation to trust in Christ.
NOTE: TODAY marks 31 days before the 40th anniversary of the infamous Roe v. Wade decision that spearheaded the legalizaion of the abortion of the unborn in America. I am in the midst of a 40 day period of prayer and (limited) fasting to honor the memory of the almost 60 million ! unborn that have been murdered and the 10s of millions of their mothers, fathers, and siblings who have been victimized by this great American Holocaust.
PLEASE PRAY: 1. For the girls/women each day contemplating an abortion; the abortionists and their staff; the crisis pregnancy centers seeking to serve the women facing unplanned pregnancies.
2, For the passage of even more state laws that will effectively help to limit the number of abortions being performed.
3. The defunding of Planned Parenthood that performs over 300,000 abortions (about 1/3 the toal) for profit and still receives almost 1/2 billion dollars in federal tax dollars.
4. That one day America might finally pass a constitutional amendment promoting the Sanctity of Every Human Life - in effect oulawing both abortion and euthanasia.
5. For churches/Christians being pro-life- not just claiming to be but demonstrating it conclusively by their actiions.
A "Politically Incorrect" PRAYER REQUEST : In marking the shootings of a week ago, bells throughout Newton, Connecticut, were rung yesterday for those who died. It saddened me that some refused to toll their bell for the shooter and his mother. I totally cannot understand the reluctance to recognize the mother as a victim. And while I can understand the emotion behind the refusal to remember the murderer, the fact that we will never know what led that troubled soul to be in such pain and so deceived by Satan gives me pause. (Of course, like Judas Iscariot - and each of us - he alone is accountable for his actions.) Therefore, I have felt led by God to PRAY for His mercy as he judges Adam Lansa for his actions. For surely, while it is too late for God to extend him His grace, is it not in God's nature to extend mercy in some measure to anyone He is forced to judge? [After all, CHRISTmas is a time to remember God showing EACH OF US mercy and grace in coming in the Person of Jesus Christ. As NONE OF US is deserving of either from God, can we not at least ask Him to extend MERCY to even him WE have judged in our hearts to be one of the worst among us?]
"Here," Erick Erickson ,
On Christmas Day of 1863, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow penned the poem “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” His oldest son had been badly wounded in the Civil War the prior month and Longfellow’s wife had died in an accidental fire. Among the lines were these:
Young men storming the beaches of Normandy in World War II, as they lay dying in the sand, would gasp, crying out for their mothers. We should not dare even try to imagine the cries of those children that terrible day — the cries left unanswered; moms and dads not coming to rescue and to comfort.
At Christmas, those who demand to know where God was must be met with compassion, but also clearly with the word “Here.” Christ did not abandon those children. He met many that day with open arms. He comforts now where parents cannot. He shines even now as a light in the darkness for those who are willing to see him.
We have become accustomed in our vernacular to treat evil as the opposite of good or the opposite of God. Evil is not an opposite; it is an absence — the absence of good, the absence of God. The act in Connecticut was evil.
God and good exist. The devil and evil do as well — the incarnation of the absolute void left in the absence of God. The existence of a Risen Lord does not exempt the world, even Christians, from evil in the world. We are all born sinners and sin affects the world as much as sun and rain and air. Bad things do happen to good people and to innocent children still unaware of the extent of human evil. It is the nature of this world and why so many long for the next.
Two thousand years ago Christ was born in Bethlehem. We focus on angels, shepherds, wise men, and the virgin birth. We focus on the miracle. We ignore the rest of the story. King Herod sent soldiers to Bethlehem where they slaughtered every boy under the age of two. The world greeted the birth of the Savior with the slaughter of innocents.
Two thousand years later, in a small town in Connecticut, the cries of children and the sounds of gun fire bring us to reflection and prayer. And “Jesus wept.”
He weeps now. He welcomes home the little children and calls for us to persevere and, if we will, to turn back toward him and bring our society with us. But our society must be prepared to have larger conversations than whether or not we should regulate guns or bullets. We must discuss mental health. We should discuss the real nature of evil. We should know that in this fallen world sometimes there is nothing we can do.
Longfellow, his wife dead and thinking his son dying, concluded his poem that Christmas Day 149 years ago thusly:
One week ago in Connecticut, innocent children were gunned down. It is not a far leap to wonder if Longfellow was right. Many have asked loudly to Christians this week “Where is your God” and “How could Jesus let this happen?”And in despair I bowed my head;
”There is no peace on earth,” I said;
”For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”
Young men storming the beaches of Normandy in World War II, as they lay dying in the sand, would gasp, crying out for their mothers. We should not dare even try to imagine the cries of those children that terrible day — the cries left unanswered; moms and dads not coming to rescue and to comfort.
At Christmas, those who demand to know where God was must be met with compassion, but also clearly with the word “Here.” Christ did not abandon those children. He met many that day with open arms. He comforts now where parents cannot. He shines even now as a light in the darkness for those who are willing to see him.
We have become accustomed in our vernacular to treat evil as the opposite of good or the opposite of God. Evil is not an opposite; it is an absence — the absence of good, the absence of God. The act in Connecticut was evil.
God and good exist. The devil and evil do as well — the incarnation of the absolute void left in the absence of God. The existence of a Risen Lord does not exempt the world, even Christians, from evil in the world. We are all born sinners and sin affects the world as much as sun and rain and air. Bad things do happen to good people and to innocent children still unaware of the extent of human evil. It is the nature of this world and why so many long for the next.
Two thousand years ago Christ was born in Bethlehem. We focus on angels, shepherds, wise men, and the virgin birth. We focus on the miracle. We ignore the rest of the story. King Herod sent soldiers to Bethlehem where they slaughtered every boy under the age of two. The world greeted the birth of the Savior with the slaughter of innocents.
Two thousand years later, in a small town in Connecticut, the cries of children and the sounds of gun fire bring us to reflection and prayer. And “Jesus wept.”
He weeps now. He welcomes home the little children and calls for us to persevere and, if we will, to turn back toward him and bring our society with us. But our society must be prepared to have larger conversations than whether or not we should regulate guns or bullets. We must discuss mental health. We should discuss the real nature of evil. We should know that in this fallen world sometimes there is nothing we can do.
Longfellow, his wife dead and thinking his son dying, concluded his poem that Christmas Day 149 years ago thusly:
[bold, italics, and underlined emphasis mine]Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.”
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