Mike Rutledge.CA

Father, I don’t know where to begin. Quite honestly my heart is filled with to many emotions – competing emotions- from worry, fear, anger, pride, to love, hope, and even the temptation towards indifference. It is so easy to simply scroll by the articles, to return to the easy life that I have here. The smiling faces of my friends make it easy to forgot the horror.  So, though it may be the wrong place to start, God, help me. Help me not to pass these people by, brothers and sisters in the faith, countless other innocent people, all being so mercilessly destroyed. Help me not to sink into the indifference that so easily captures my comfortable heart. Keep my heart broken and gut wrenched at the atrocities. Burden my soul with their suffering.

Your word says that we need to mourn with those who mourn, and praying is the only way that I know how to do that right now. I can’t even image how they are feeling. I dare not even try. Lord God, just be with my brothers and sisters, be with those families torn apart, oh God of all comfort, comfort them. Bring your peace to the minds of those having to see their loved ones tortured, bring peace to the minds having to relive it over and over again. Bring your peace to the fathers. Bring your peace to mothers. Bring your peace to the brothers. Bring your peace to the sisters. Bring your peace to sons. Bring your peace to daughters.  Hear their cries! Hear their blood scream! Oh God, bring your hand of justice to bear. God our Rock, our Fortress, protect your people. Your word says persecution will come, it should be no surprise to us, but even in our anticipation of such things, horrors as we have seen today still pain us Lord. God of Justice, let justice come. God our Father, Protector, Shepherd, let your hand move! Stop this! Lord I admit that my plea for your justice comes from both holy and unholy anger. Both from justice and revenge. But Lord help my heart to be reminded that vengeance is yours and yours alone. I petition you Lord, that the demons of death and deception influencing this will be cast into the Hell they deserve, these spiritual influencers who work to bring destruction, may they themselves be found under the holy wrath of your justice God. Stop this demonic action. This capacity for evil seems nothing less than that.

Lord, in a weird sense of pride, I thank you for lives of these martyrs. People that, even unto death, speak your name. I pray that in this generation too, the blood of these martyrs may be the seed for a bolder church. Let the Church in Iraq grow ever bolder, ever stronger, leaning more heavily upon you, their Father, during this time.  May the global church, and especially us westerners, be so convicted to our cores to emulate such faith. We with our petty ‘worship wars’ and church splits over guitars and carpet colour, seem so foolish in the wake of such persecution. I know my heart has been both broken and built up. Broken for the suffering, broken over the cruelty, but built up with faith, built up by pettiness being stripped away. How dare I care so much about myself, my image, my life, when my brothers and sisters are having their lives taken. How dare I remain so passive in this faith, when it cost others their lives,  may your Church, oh God, not move onto to quickly, may we never forget our brothers and our sisters, who gave their lives. May we hold their legacy with high honour, may we let their lives stir us on. May my generation be forever changed by their sacrifice.

Lord, all the rage – the rage from feeling powerless, the rage and anger against the persecutors – I know I must lay at your feet. With all the faith I can muster up Lord, I pray this final plea. A plea that goes against every vengeful bone in my body. I pray for the leaders of ISIS. I pray Lord that your grace my find them. I pray that if it is your will, Jesus, rescue them from the fate that awaits. I pray that you break through their hardened hearts, soften them to you and save them from this. I pray that one day when we will stand before you, there beside me might be some of these men. Like Saul, Jesus, knock them ‘off their horse’, show yourself and let the underserved, unfair grace that you gave to me find them also. May your church extend its forgiveness to them, may your mercy flow to them, may your cross change them. Honestly Lord, I don’t know how much I really want this petition to be answered. I can feel the tension in me. But Lord, I know your cross changes everything. Yes, I pray for justice. Yes, I pray for an end to this. But, even with a only a mustard size faith and hope, I pray for their salvation too.

Jesus, thank you for what you have done for me, thank you for salvation, thank you for my freedom. May your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven, may your peace reign in all the earth, may justice come, may your grace pour out, may your church arise, may our tears never stop, may our hearts be ever strong. To you alone be all glory. To you alone do I owe my all.

In your great name, Amen.