Classes resumed today at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, after being closed for over a week following the deadly campus shooting on October 1. Nine people were killed before the gunman killed himself.
We still grieve with those whose lives have been shattered, especially the families of those who were martyred for confessing faith in Jesus Christ. Below is a prayer for those who are hurting, a prayer for comfort and peace in Christ in the midst of tragedy. Please join me in interceding for them.
Dear Merciful Father,
Thank you for extending your amazing, sustaining grace that enabled your people to confess your name, even as it cost them their lives. We pray that you might be glorified in their faithfulness, and that you might use it to strengthen Christians across the nation and around the world.
Through this tragedy, draw unbelievers to the One in whom the Apostle Paul said “to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21).
Grant families and friends comfort in the compassionate, living Christ, as you did for Mary and Martha and the family of Lazarus in John 11. May these families and friends rest in the truth that Jesus is “the resurrection and the life,” that those who trust in the Savior live eternally with Him (John 11:25).
Therefore, in the midst their sorrow we pray that they not grieve as those “who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13), but trust in the living God (1 Timothy 6:17).
Lord, as you have described Yourself, please be a father to the fatherless and “protector of widows” (Psalm 68:5), as well as the object of their continual faithful prayers (1 Timothy 5:5).
Let this sad event remind us all that because of sin, death awaits every person. May those who have been reconciled to the Father through the Son be strengthened in the assurance that the Redeemer lives so that they also might live. For those who have not embraced the saving grace of Christ, may they now consider the terrible judgment that awaits them and run to Him for rescue (Hebrews 9:27).
Finally, may the God of all grace, who called these believers into His eternal glory on October 1, “restore, confirm, strengthen and establish” the ones they leave behind (1 Peter 5:10).
