“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,” Jesus taught (Matthew 5:44). This sounds easy until situations like the one going on now in the Middle East arise.
ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), a radical Islamic terrorist group, is raiding parts of Northern Iraq and Syria, expelling or executing Christians. Those who have been able to flee their homes have left with nothing more than the clothes on their backs. Some have made it to neighboring villages while others have been left to starve in the mountains, cut off from food and water.
Those left behind are experiencing severe brutality. Women are being raped and taken as sex slaves, men are being buried alive and crucified, and children are being beheaded. The horror is difficult to even fathom.
So when my pastor’s wife encouraged us this past Sunday morning to pray for the salvation of ISIS, to pray for grace and mercy for the men responsible for the deaths of thousands of Christians, I felt sick to my stomach. I was certainly praying, but my prayers were for justice (the-Egyptians-at-the-Red-Sea kind of justice), not for mercy and grace and salvation.
I was responding like Jonah, who ran in the other direction when God told him to go preach to the Ninevites, a brutal and barbaric people. Jonah didn’t want to go because he knew that God is “a merciful and compassionate God, slow to become angry, rich in faithful love, and One who relents from sending disaster” (Jonah 4:2). In other words, Jonah knew God would forgive them.
But Jonah wanted disaster for the Ninevites, not mercy.
I wanted disaster for ISIS, not mercy.
Jesus’ words from Matthew kept ringing through my mind: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” So, with a clenched jaw and in the softest voice I
could manage, I started to pray the salvation of the members of ISIS.
As I prayed, something remarkable happened. The fear and anxiety and anger that had made their home in my heart started to subside as I realized I had the ear of the sovereign Ruler of the universe. The sovereign Ruler. In other words, the One who is sovereign over the sun, the moon, the stars, and the seas is the same One who is sovereign over ISIS. Not one thing in all of God’s grand creation slips outside of His mighty grasp.
What a comfort it is to know that God isn’t nervously wringing His hands in heaven, wondering what to do about ISIS. No, He has ultimate control, not ISIS. And somehow, some way, God will work all this out for good. That’s His promise. That’s our comfort.
What’s even more remarkable is that God invites us to play a part in His cosmic plan through the mystery of prayer. Will you join me in approaching God’s throne with boldness? Will you pray for comfort, strength, and the peace that passes all understanding for Christians in the Middle East? Will you pray that the men responsible for what some are calling a Christian holocaust be brought to their knees in repentance before the holy God?
Emily Ellis is the publishing team leader of magazines and devotionals at Lifeway. Originally from Boston, she studied Hebrew at Tel Aviv University in Israel and continues to be a student of Middle Eastern culture.