Never Give Up

Those words were immortalized by Winston Churchill through his bulldogged, determined resistance to the relentless forces of Adolph Hitler during World War II.  Yet, long before Churchill, the Scriptures have admonished us to persevere in our faith, another word for “never give up”.

Do you see what has happened since we began praying for the Syrian crisis?  God has answered.  He has averted, at least for now, what could have been the beginning of a major Middle East war and prevented the killing of even more people in Syria through what we euphemistically call “collateral damage” from an America attack.  
Regardless of how we may think the unforeseen, potential diplomatic solution came about, who gets the credit, or how it will play out in the long run, we who understand the power of prayer know Who is ultimately in control of the nations.  It is God who appoints and removes their leaders and moves them in the direction He chooses.

Consider these Scriptures:

The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will.  Proverbs 21:1 (ESV)

But God is the Judge; He puts down one and exalts another.  Psalms 75:7 (NASB)

 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." Romans 9:17 (ESV)

In addition, although not widely publicized, today was designated by many churches across the land as a special day of prayer and fasting for Syria.  Praise God!  And thank you for praying and trusting Him to begin drawing His church to come out humbly and publicly turning to Him and asking with bold faith for His intervention that He may be glorified in His Son.

So what do we do next?  Do we now sit back and breathe a cautious sigh of relief because an immediate crisis seems to have passed?  On the contrary, as the apostle Paul would say, “May it never be!”  Rather, we should take this as encouragement to pray even more fervently.  Seeing that God has honored the prayers of a relatively few who earnestly turned to Him, we would do well to see this as a wake-up call because there are surely greater crises ahead as this world slips deeper into chaos and we, as a nation, continue to turn from God in the public arena.  Even more, there are still millions of people worldwide who have an urgent need to hear for the first time the Good News of Jesus Christ.

I have to ask myself, “Am I glad primarily that we may have been spared, for the moment, involvement in another war?”  Was that the main purpose for our prayers?  As important as that is, I must remind myself that it’s really all about Jesus and what will bring Him the most glory.  That should be my heart’s deepest desire. 

Can we be encouraged by this answer to our prayers to come together in humility to pray bigger prayers of faith for our nation and for the lost of the world?  Hopefully, this is the beginning of a movement in the Church to return to our spiritual foundations.  If not, if we quickly become complacent again, we are sure to face much more difficult and serious crises in the future.  It happened repeatedly with the nation of Israel.  It will happen to us.

But what can you and I do?  When it comes to earnest prayer, never give up!

And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.  Galatians 6:9 (ESV)