Like most of you, the news coming from around the world is more than I can comprehend. Seeing women leaving their husbands and fathers kissing their children goodbye (maybe for the last time) seems surreal. I mean, it’s 2022. Haven’t we learned what war does? Doesn’t the world know how vicious and grueling it is? Apparently not.
As I sat down on my cozy couch, I began contemplating all of the “what-ifs” this war may bring. Overwhelmed for the Ukrainians, I also began to wonder how it would impact us. Will we be fighting too? Will war be fought on American soil? What about those nukes? I had a lot of questions that don’t have answers.
But then it hit me. Is there anything that I can do to help those in need? And before I knew it, the Lord sent me a little diddly from my childhood days. It goes like this:
I may never march in the infantry
Ride in the cavalry
Shoot the artillery
I may never zoom o’er the enemy
But I'm in the Lord's army!
I'm in the Lord's army!
Simple, isn’t it?
Even though I am approximately 5,575 miles from the Ukrainian people, I am in the Lord’s army – just like many of you. So, what can we do as members of that army?
We can pray.
Among all of the horrific news that has filled news and social media sites, I find hope that prayers are being answered. Just the other day, I saw a mutual friend asking for prayers for his brother overseas. Hope seemed slim. But prayer warriors from Mississippi and surrounding areas lifted a man they’d never met up in prayer. And when the Russians invaded the brother’s workplace, they let him and his coworkers go.
Now, for some, they may argue that it was a coincidence. But I don’t buy it.
Likewise, I read another post where a Ukrainian pastor was witnessing the effects of prayer. He excitedly said:
“Rockets disappear in the air without reaching our homes, and no one knows where they go. Enemy tanks run out of fuel, Russian troops get lost and ask our locals for food and directions – that is definitely God because we are dealing with the second-largest army in the world.”
And again, according to an article on Christianity Daily, an American-Israeli pastor in Belarus also saw strange things happening. He said, “We’re seeing things at night that we don't normally see that save us. It seems like sometimes bullets are just passing us by, instead of hitting us and things like this.”
In the middle of a war, people are surviving and seeing the impossible happen. Why is that? I believe it is because those of us in the Lord’s army are stepping up to the plate and praying for our brothers and sisters in need.
There is something we can do in the face of uncertainty, troubling times, and even war. We are in a battle, and we can do something about it. Even if we never get to zoom o’er the enemy…we’re in the Lord’s army. Yes, sir!
If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land (2 Chronicles 7:14).
