Posted by PS on March 20, 2003 at 01:16:19:
In Reply to: prayers for peace posted by giveawayboy on March 19, 2003 at 22:51:19:
: Let's pray for peace in our world. Right now, no matter how routine our lives seem, we are in a state of war and NOT peace and we should be circumspect, knowing that right now nothing is stable. We should pray for our respective countries and their leaders with the goal of peace, whether or not we agree with them, and we should pray for all involved in conflict that the sufferring will be minimal and that it will end soon. Also, we should pray for all Muslims, Jews and Christians, who believe in God, to find their peace in HIM ALONE--even if we disagree on serious issues, we still all claim the God of Abraham. We should all take our refuge in God, the source of peace.
: Bill
I wholeheartedly endorse Bill's exhortation. I am deeply grieved at this whole situation, but I will spare you my politics here (though I did not spare poor John Lee Monday night). I believe we are called to be ambassadors of reconciliation, and this is sometimes hard to do when waving flags (or guns).
Bill's last two sentences--this is really on my heart the last couple days. There is one God, a God of love, and He is near to all who seek refuge in Him. There are Iraqis right now, innocent civilians and their children, who are afraid for their lives, crying out to their God to save them. And they do not know it, and we do not know it, but their God is our God.
I was talking with my friend Leena Al-Arian on Tuesday about her father's upcoming bail hearing. She said she was just trusting in God and His will and knew that He was in control. I did not feel we were from two different religions; I felt like she was my sister. She welcomes my prayers for her and her family. She has close Jewish and Christian friends, and knows we love the same God.
Now I cannot make a statement about things I do not know. I can observe that this person learned her respect for all people and religious beliefs somewhere, and if her father is truly the hate-mongering terrorist the media and government claims, this is quite a remarkable anomaly. The apple has fallen quite far from the tree, into a different continent perhaps.
I am an American, and I love this country, but I am a child of God first. I am neither judge nor jury. I have no knowledge of who is telling the truth. I can not implicitly trust our President nor our government to tell the truth or do the right thing. What I do know is that we are called to be a force of love, peace, and reconciliation in the world, however large or small our arena of influence may be. This week I have committed to do this, to be this, to follow Jesus.