Even consuming the news at the bare minimum rate to stay informed can be discouraging these days. Some headlines deliberately intend to shock, of course, but sometimes the most unnerving ones are the daily updates of facts without commentary of any kind.
The art of evaluating sources of information for their particular slant would fill a blog on its own; after all, that’s half the battle of a college education. It’s a vital issue right now, but the one I would like to address here is: what do we do with the information we get? Obviously, if the information contains carefully-reasoned instructions to help stop the spread of the virus, we follow those instructions. We owe it to the people around us to do everything in our power to avoid overwhelming the medical system with too many patients at once. But what about the information we can’t physically act on? The statistics, the politics, the economy? When I was in high school, some kind adult gave me a magnet for my locker whose sentiment kind of stuck with me: “WORRY BAD, PRAYER GOOD.” Of course, I’ve forgotten about it during some of the years since then, but it comes back to me now as we all find ourselves in worrisome times. I haven’t always been good about practicing the art of prayer. For the sort of person who prefers action and engagement, something as quiet and solitary as prayer can be a hard habit to cultivate. In fact, there was a long dry spell towards the end of the last calendar year in which I felt weird about talking to God at all because, silly me, I thought that was less important than doing the work of the church. Getting back into it was a little awkward at first, but doing it proved necessary and vital. I began to see how so many of those activities I had been so busy doing weren’t that important or at least needed some adjustments. Difficult relationships improved. Miracle of miracles, I survived five weeks of isolation with no breakdowns. All of this feels like it was the preparation for this season, when all we can do about a lot of things is pray, and leave it in the hands of God. Every news story that bothers you is an opportunity to pray. Prayer is not a passive form of self-care like mainstream mindfulness meditation, but a relationship to an all-powerful God who can actually help with the things that you can do nothing about. A part of why so many of us are afraid to pray big prayers about the sorts of things we hear on the news is because we are afraid of not being answered. After all, it is God’s prerogative to do what He wants. Here’s why: It never hurts to ask. If we go into prayer humbly, acknowledging God’s sovereignty and power, we will at least know that we did all we could do about the world’s problems. The exercise of taking those worries and trusting God with them brings peace. I could easily get into a complex discussion of what prayer can and cannot do—many books have been written on the topic—but in its simplest form, it is a relationship. In this season of social distancing, we need that reassurance that there is Someone who is always there and who cares deeply for us, no matter how long it’s been since we’ve last talked to Him. The more comfortable you get talking to God about your own life, the easier it gets to pray about the big things. This isn’t about manipulating events to happen the way you want them to go—that would be sorcery, which the Bible rightfully condemns. This is about the art of showing God that you trust Him to act. For complex theological reasons not worth getting into right now, that act of surrender actually gives Him more room to act, both through you and through others. Go ahead and pray about coronavirus. Pray about the economy. Pray for the protection of the healthcare workers, the grocery store employees, and everyone else in those frontline positions in fighting this thing. Especially pray for those in power to have wisdom beyond their natural abilities—the decisions they make at this point have the ability to save or kill in a number of ways. The more of us who do this, the more room God has to act. If we could get an audience with a human being able to instantly manufacture thousands of N-95 masks and ventilators, we would do it without question. So why not ask our heavenly Father, who knows we need these things? How much more would He be willing to grant them? He works through complex and mysterious ways, often under the guise of very mundane-looking means, but sometimes that begins with a single prayer.
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AuthorJillian Lutes is the youth pastor at West Covina Hills Seventh-day Adventist Church. Archives
May 2020
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