Seeing the news events unfold can heighten anxiety and a sense of powerlessness. You could unsubscribe to the up-to-the-minute news alerts, quit checking Twitter trends, stop watching 24-hour news, and binge on Netflix—or you could pray INTO the news.
Pray INTO the news? What? How?
Turn watching or reading the news into invitations. Yes, invite the Lord into the news experience with you. Rather than worrying, complaining, or tuning out, let your heart absorb the news stories in his presence. (Spoiler alert: you’ll wonder what in the world you can possibly to do help). That’s a good sign! Your eyes are lifting. “I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord,who made heaven and earth” (Psalm 121:1-2).
Instead of “storming the gates of heaven” to tell God what he should do, pray “your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). What does that mean? You are praying that something will happen that has not yet happened. You are asking for God’s kingdom to manifest, for his heavenly reign to break into earth. Now that’s exciting, isn’t it?
Rather than trying to interpret news events, ask the Lord to “punch holes in the darkness.” This line comes from a story about Robert Louis Stevenson (author of Treasure Island). When he was a boy, he watched the lamplighters go about the town with ladders and torches, lighting the streetlights. One night he exclaimed to his parents, “Look! He’s punching holes in the darkness!” Praying INTO the news will transform your fears into faith. You’ll begin to see that “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it” (John 1:5, NLT).
Friends, the world desperately needs us to be more engaged, not less. Will you pray INTO the news with me?
PRAY: “Lord, give me eyes to see what’s happening in the world from your perspective. Help me to be more aware, more contemplative, more disciplined to pray INTO what I watch and read. Punch holes in the darkness, Jesus, and have mercy on us all. Amen.
