Have you noticed lately that People of the Cross seem to be lining up more with political parties and less with particular positions? Or maybe that’s just us in this crazy cowboy country. We pick from a couple letters of the alphabet and somehow that’s supposed to clarify everything we believe on anything.
But a curious thing has been happening. Someone will be outspoken for the women and children at the border and noticeably silent on the women and children being separated in abortion facilities. A person demands acceptance as the highest good and yet demeans the opinions of those who might respectfully disagree with their lifestyle choices.
We cry out for the pre-born and yet seem too busy to be bothered with the hundreds of born children stuck in foster care. We say that all lives matter but disregard the very real injustices that happen across racial and socioeconomic lines in and out of the church.
You could right write a book about all the ways each side on this bloodless battle seems inconsistent and confused. Because they are. And somewhere we started to identify more with a political party than an eternal kingdom.
The question I’ve been wrestling lately is this: what would happen if we started asking Abba what HE thinks about some of these issues? And then asked what HE would have us do?
That Wise Word, it’s pretty clear on some issues. And a little less so on others. But it’s no old book collecting dust. It’s alive and working and full of promises that encourage and truth that convicts if we’re brave enough to dive in. And our God, He’ll show us how to be brave yet kind, strong yet tender in the face of all the bleeding hurt of this busted up world.
These days, I need less of my own scattered thoughts and more of His eternal wisdom. That’s why I keep writing the words on 3×5 cards to try and etch them on my heart. To mark my mind like the tattoos on my husbands arm. To let the words, the Truth, be like breathing in and out : natural, normal, the life source I hardly have to think about.
These last two weeks of five minute stops three times a day has shown me that it’s in the slowing down that I can actually start to hear. Not my runaway monologue, but the whispers of Heaven. And what I’m hearing is rattling me to the core.
How might lives be saved, powers moved and history shifted if I spent time praying over the issues dominating headlines before I began debating them?
What would change in yours and my life if we asked Abba for HIS position and what HE would have us do about it? What if we asked for His heart rather than trying to sort it out alone with our selfish and short-sighted thinking?
What if:
We talked less about immigration and border walls and prayed more for the foreigner?
What if we spent less time screaming about women’s rights and more time praying for the widows and orphans?
What if we prayed for those stuck in poverty and organizations seeking to break that cycle, rather than driving fast by the person on the corner?
What if we prayed for all our leaders, rather than simply rolling our eyes at their latest antics?
Might we start to better hear HIS voice, better find the rhythm of HIS heart on these issues and learn to walk with Him? Maybe in our praying we would move Heaven, but most certainly, He would move us. Maybe we would find ways to love people that is compassionate without compromising, crossing political battle lines and party trenches to be the nail scared hands and feet.
Maybe we would find ourselves standing in the gray areas, in the tension of the extremes to offer a holy and wholly different perspective.
Before we act (and we should act), let’s first make sure we’ve positioned that beating, bleeding heart of ours to line up with our Abba more than we line up with some side of an issue. Let’s write these words on our cards and three times a day let them guide our thinking and our prayers this week:
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.
It’s complicated out there but you can be certain that the best position on any issue is the humble one. And justice and mercy, it might not look anything like what we’ve imagined. It will most likely require that we be brave, that we press in when we want to run, and follow Abba out of our comfort zones and into where He is at work.
We’ve spent a week looking in, spent another week lifting up and clearing out what’s weighing us down. Now let’s take our five minutes, three times a day, and pray for this world spinning fast around us. Pray for Heaven to break through and heal our land, bind up our brokenness and line up our hearts with His.
Joanna Hyatt 
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