Don't forget

"And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered." Matthew 10.30

God's attention is limitless but ours is not. The proof is in how quickly headline news can be superseded when something new or more dramatic occurs - or something that impacts upon our own lives more directly. Quite understandably our news media is full of Hurricane Ian, our own domestic political chaos and Ukraine's continuing fight for survival. But what about Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Tonga and others where natural disasters, human rights abuses and climate change continue to provoke a perfect storm of suffering and injustice?

Recently the former US congressman, Tom Andrews, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Myanmar (Burma) drew attention to 1.3 million displaced people; 28,000 destroyed homes; villages burned to the ground; more than 13,000 children killed as the death toll for innocent people rises significantly; a looming food crisis; and 130,000 Rohingya in de facto internment camps while others suffer deprivation and discrimination rooted in their lack of citizenship. And that is just one of the many nations the world is forgetting about!

This is not to induce guilt or despair. It is a reminder of the prevalence of evil and it is a clarion call to action for champions of justice and freedom and a summons to prayer. The challenges are beyond us in scope and scale. But not beyond God. That is why the answer to the mountain of need which confronts us begins in prayer. No other resource is as powerful because no other resource can move a mountain. Prayer can! That is not wishful thinking; we have it on the authority of the Lord of History and the King of Creation, our Saviour Jesus, the Christ.

Dèanamaid ùrnaigh...