Where Is God When We Suffer?
In Matthew 21:21-22 Jesus teaches us what our authority is when we pray: Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”
What do you do when life becomes overwhelming? Do you look to friends or family to help you? Or do you think you need to pull yourself up by your own efforts?
The old adage says, “when times get tough, the tough get going.” But what if you’re too tired to be tough? Too tired to fight back against economic conditions beyond your control and you must make critical financial decisions in order to juggle keeping your budget under control without dipping into savings. Or maybe you don’t have savings and you have to put it on your Visa card instead. Whatever the case, it’s madness. Gas prices are too high. Food prices are too high. Rent or mortgage payments are too high and the price of buying a home is out of reach.
Gun violence permeates the very fabric of our lives and so much so that our children aren’t safe at school anymore. Month after month, we hear of another shooting at a school, at a grocery store, at the shopping mall, and even at a church. Why is everyone on edge? Why is everyone so angry? It’s so debilitating, we hate to watch the news for fear of hearing about yet another shooting.
Does Anyone Care About Our Suffering?
What’s the solution? How do we fix these social ill? I believe Jesus is our only help for the societal ills we wrestle with because it all originates from our enemy, Satan. He is the perpetrator of all things evil, not people or God. But there is good news. When Jesus conquered the grave to live eternally, he took back the keys from Satan that control the earth and gave them to us. The keys that Jesus gave us are meant to unlock any circumstance that we may face. The key is understanding who we are because of what Jesus did. Satan is defeated. We must know that like we know our name.
Prayer is an essential ingredient for unlocking circumstances beyond our control and then patience to wait on God’s answer. The question that many people have is “does God really care?” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “Prayer is not overcoming God’s reluctance, but laying hold of His willingness.” Let us trust that God hears our prayers and when they agree with His Will, we know He will answer. Therefore, this is our prayer:
Our Prayer
Dear Father, who is in Heaven, we reverence Your Holy Name. We honor and exalt You above everything. We repent of our sins, and we turn to You to restore us back to You because we believe in the Lord Jesus as our Savior. By the power of the Holy Spirit living in me, we disrupt and reverse the plans of Satan against humanity and against our children. We disarm and dismantle his forces that intend to invade our schools with death, lack of discipline, and violence and we replace them with peace, love, joy, and supernatural protection. We forcefully come against the evil plans to poison our food supplies with disease causing chemicals and the alteration of every seed bearing plant and we enforce God’s original plan to provide healing through the food that we eat. We decree food is now our medicine. We pray for our upcoming elections and decree peace over the United States of America. We declare there will be no manipulation of votes, no tampering with the results, and no civil unrest. We seal this prayer in the precious Name of Jesus, and we decree that there will be no repercussions, no backlashes, and no revenge against it. Amen.
