Helen Kendall provokes us to pray

Helen Kendall

"This is an article to encourage you to pray more..." If that statement makes you want to click on another article, then maybe you need to read this more than anyone. If I'm honest, I rarely pray for the bigger picture. I pray for my family and for my personal concerns but I rarely, if ever, pray for the plight of other nations and situations, for Iraq, for Darfur, for the poverty stricken Pakistanis caught up in earthquakes or floods. Somehow I forget, which must actually mean I don't care.

Recently I had a conversation with a friend whose husband is an Iraqi living in the UK. His family, brothers, uncles, aunts and cousins (all 62 of them), are still in Iraq. He lives every day with the fear that any one of them could be killed randomly by the death squads or militia that roam the streets killing indiscriminately. Hearing my friend speak of life in Baghdad and the fear that constantly follows everyone there, and the 100 innocents brought dead into hospitals every day, made me want to pray. It made me want to get down on my knees and really pray. For God's mercy on the people living in Iraq, for God's justice in that situation and for his protection for innocent families trying to live their lives in peace.

The sad thing is that I've probably heard all those stories any time I switch on my TV, radio or computer, but I have chosen not to really hear them. When I see those stories on the news, bombs in market places, women wailing, men shouting, I usually flick the channel. It's too much to take in, and I have a theory why. When I sit in my peaceful, secure, prosperous, western life and turn on a device in the corner of my living room, I am bombarded with images that are almost too painful to understand. I can't reconcile them with my situation. I can't deal with the contrast between these people's life and mine. So I switch off, I disengage, I wimp out of sacrificing my own mental comfort because that would involve engaging with their suffering.

I know it is impossible to personally right all the wrongs in this crazy world. I know that somehow we have to live with the fact that most of us in the West are among the wealthiest and most comfortable people in the world. But I also know that as a Christian I am called to love others as I love myself and to look after the poor and persecuted and to weep with those who weep. For me, one conversation with someone who has family members in Iraq has had more impact than all the blood stained images I've seen on the 6 O'Clock news. Why? Because it was one story, it was manageable. It has made me pray.

I'm not just telling you all this to get you to pray for Iraq, for Darfur, for the other tragic situations around the world. I'm challenging you to get yourself to a place where you want to. Get yourself to a place where you care. Do whatever it takes to wake up, slap your own face and think about others. Whether it's watching the news, doing some research, imagining your city as a war zone or whatever works for you. Find something that can stop you in your time wasteful, indulgent Western lifestyle, find one story and pray for it. The tragedies in the world are too big for us to understand or fix but if we can find a way to stir ourselves from our comfort induced slumber then maybe we can be Christ like in those situations, even if the only thing we can do is pray.