Part of the message of Easter is that the Lord is more powerful than the seeming darkness. There was no darker time in history than the Lord’s crucifixion, and yet He overcame.
But when we see others trample on basic human rights, and destroy lives, as is happening in the Ukraine (and sadly in other places around the world) darkness can appear to prevail. People are dying, fleeing their homes and living as refugees, and the threat of nuclear war is held over all of humanity to stop others from intervening. Some of the people in the Ukraine may be people we know and love, which makes it harder still. In the face of this, it can be a struggle to believe that His power is great enough to overcome, and to trust that He loves the people of Ukraine and peace more than we do.
How do we believe in the Lord’s power while not denying the gravity of the situation?
Thinking of the Lord’s loving and power directs our attention to what we can do rather than what we can’t. We, and the world, have the ability to accomplish anything to the degree that we
are inviting the Lord into our hearts, minds, and lives. It is His power that changes and defends. We say that He has ‘all power’ but perhaps don’t really stop to consider that this means nobody else has any.
Here are some thoughts about ways we can invite that power into the world:
- We can pray every day for the people of Ukraine, and for people in other troubled areas of the world we may know about.
- We can take more time rather than less to read the Word (Bible) so that we can have insight, both into the current situation, but also into how we can be better people.
- We can intentionally seek to be kinder, more compassionate people who act with integrity in our daily lives, becoming more of a force for good in the world.
- We can seek to help in whatever external ways we have the time and means to do.
- We can keep anxiety at bay so that we don’t become part of the panic and fear that leads to poor decisions.
- We can look at ways we need to work on trusting the Lord in our own lives, because doing so will help us learn to trust Him in world affairs also.
I hope and pray that we will see a miraculous manifestation of the Lord’s power at this moment of war, where we can look back and rejoice at the Lord’s obvious hand in things. Yet even if we don’t see it clearly, let us believe that the Lord is at work. Nobody expected the solution the Lord came up with on Easter morning.
A few weeks before, it would have seemed like no solution at all. Yet we can see in retrospect that it was a much better solution than anything you or I might have come up with. Whatever happens,
we can rest assured that His hand will be present, guiding all toward peace.
I am trying to hold two seemingly disparate ideas in mind, because I know the Lord does: I want to be compassionate and ache for the people of Ukraine and for the uncertainty that this war entails
for them and for all of us. And at the same time I want to believe in the Lord’s infinite power and love, and to hope that I can be part of the solution for a better, more peaceful world.