Deep groaning needs to happen

Another weekend, another shooting. A teen party in a small town in Alabama. Four dead. Louisville. Nashville. It’s exhausting.

I know we get tired of hearing “thoughts and prayers.” I get tired because I know people are now saying it… and not even doing it for the victims.

But prayer… this is something I am challenged in when it comes to big monsters like this. When ISIS was dominating the news and the Middle East, that monster crushed me as well. And the Lord challenged me about prayer. Instead of just saying, “Thoughts and prayers” and leave it at that, or a prayer lifted up for the victims, how about prayer. How about engaging in spiritual warfare? How about intercession?

I am reminded of the illustration of intercession in this story:

Numbers 16:46–50 (NIV)

⁴⁶ Then Moses said to Aaron, “Take your censer and put incense in it, along with burning coals from the altar, and hurry to the assembly to make atonement for them. Wrath has come out from the Lord; the plague has started.” ⁴⁷ So Aaron did as Moses said, and ran into the midst of the assembly. The plague had already started among the people, but Aaron offered the incense and made atonement for them. ⁴⁸ He stood between the living and the dead, and the plague stopped. ⁴⁹ But 14,700 people died from the plague, in addition to those who had died because of Korah. ⁵⁰ Then Aaron returned to Moses at the entrance to the tent of meeting, for the plague had stopped.

The role of the intercessor is to stand in that place between the living and the dead and lift up prayer until the plague is stopped. It’s not overnight. It’s not in a month. It is a battle.

The DNA of this nation has been violence from the beginning. We solve things with weapons and destruction. We are deeply damaged and don’t know how to get out of spiraling cycles like this. We will draw up sides and lob political grenades at each other.

In the past few months I’ve had two Christian people I deeply admire tell me that everything is political and it all comes down to money. They truly believed it.

I do not.

There is a deep spiritual wound in the soul of our culture and prayer, deep prayer with groaning, is not “the” solution, but it needs to be IN the solution. I am challenged with deep groaning. I am challenged to pray and not give up. There ARE solutions. There IS deep healing. There is the possibility of change. This is the hope and power of the Kingdom of God.

Deep groaning and intercession is needed.