Ukraine has been heavy on my heart. I find myself, like others, wondering how I can continue on in my comfortable life, while war rages across the ocean from and against people with lives not so different from my own.
And yet, I do. My life goes on–I do hear bombs in the distance due to living near a military base, but they pose no threat to me. I can only imagine the terror if they did. I hear planes fly over my house, low and deafening. But again, no fear.
I hold my babies closer, look at the world around me with a renewed sense of gratitude, and pray, pray, pray for Ukrainians and Russians, and the Polish and Romanians, and all the countries around and in between.
My prayers seem hollow, like my words are not big enough, like my heart can’t fully grasp the weight enough, like my prayers won’t “work” unless I get my prayer just right.
I’m always fighting that. Why can’t I seem to grasp that Jesus intercedes on my behalf, getting right what I always get wrong?
As I wrestled with what to pray last week, finding myself without words, the Lord directed my heart to Matthew 6. And so I began to pray the Lord’s prayer for all involved. What better words to pray than the words Christ, Himself, commended us to pray?
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name
I begin by praying for the name of Jesus to be glorified.
In my feeble mind, I don’t see how. I’m not sure how God’s name gets glorified when His creation is destroying parts of His other creation. I’m not sure how God gets glorified when father’s are separated from their families, and children lose their daddies and mommies. I’m not sure how God gets glorified in all that ugly.
But I know by His power and Might, it can be redeemed. And so I pray for that most fervently.
Your kingdom come,
At the Cross Conference, I believe in 2020, Kevin DeYoung said, “The Kingdom has come, and is coming.” It encompasses both the Church now, as well as the future Kingdom where Jesus will establish His rule and reign forever.
He also said that “God’s Kingdom is not one to be built; it is a gift to be received.”
So I pray for the salvation of many–Ukrainians, Russians, Romainians, etc. This is the redemption story. In the midst of so much brokenness, souls are snatched from the clutches of hell, regardless of their ethnicity or origins.
Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
There are a few different definitions of “will of God,” and the one in this passage refers to what God desires of us (1 John 2:15-17).
So I pray that the Ukrainian Christians would stay faithful to the Lord and who He has called them to be, even in the midst of their world literally being shattered. Because this, too, will hallow God’s name.
Give us this day our daily bread
Simply, I ask that God would provide the daily needs to these suffering people, as a testament of His provision in a time when there are so many daily needs.
This passage is particularly referencing a spiritual bread, which goes beyond our physical needs, and is most certainly more important.
But I believe where there are physical needs to be met, Jesus would have us meet that need while also meeting the greater spiritual need. Love and truth.
And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
At that same Cross Conference, Wayne Chen so aptly remarked that the Gospel always spreads during times of difficulty. And that “debt” is synonymous with sin, citing Romans 3:23, Romans 6:23, and Matthew 6:12.
“If there is someone you cannot forgive, then you may not understand how far Jesus went to make a way to forgive your sins…being forgiven should change our relationships with others,” Chen said.
And so I pray for, yet, another seemingly impossible thing–forgiveness.
I don’t know what that looks like with war crimes being committed. But I know it is part of God’s will, so I trust Him to work out the “justice” parts and the “forgiveness” parts. Jesus intercedes, working out what I cannot.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
David Platt, again at the Cross Conference, commented on the importance of this petition because there is an “adversary who does not want God’s name to be hallowed throughout the nations.”
This war is not just a physical one between Russia and Ukraine. It is also spiritual. And if we aren’t praying against the powers of darkness involved in this atrocity, then we’ve forgotten who the author of such wickedness and confusion is.
Platt said, “The Casualties of this [spiritual] war don’t just lose an arm or leg; casualties of this war lose everything.”
I pray for the evil one to have no power. I pray that the Gospel light illuminates with truth, breaching the darkest of hearts.
I pray for these things, even as I type them now.
Olive & Moor 