We Don’t Need a Moment of Silence; We Need Hours of Prayer

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April 3, 2022

1 Peter 4:8 NIV

8 Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

CONSIDER THIS

Last week, on the Daily Text:

7 The end of all things is near. Therefore be alert and of sober mind so that you may pray.

Next week on the Daily Text:

8 Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

Today, as we stand between these two pillars of our lifelong calling and daily assignments, we sense the strong urging of the Holy Spirit—whom the early Christians called the Flame of Love—to call us again to pray together for Ukraine. Prayer, after all, is our first and perhaps greatest act of love. As the late Samuel Dickey Gordon said, “You can do more than pray after you have prayed, but you will never do more than pray until you have prayed.” 

Almighty God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit,

We come before you today in a continual declaration of peace, in the name Jesus, over the war taking place in Eastern Europe. We boldly ask you to establish and strengthen the bond of peace across the Body of Christ in Russia and Ukraine, to draw near to all the followers of Jesus scattered across these nations, and to bind them together in supernatural love that moves with the power of the gospel. May the Church Jesus is building rise up as the Light of the World, like cities on a thousand hills, and awaken the dawn in this dark land. 

Let your Kingdom break forth in demonstrations of peace in ways that confound the ways of sin, darkness, death, and evil. We pray for you to intervene in the hearts and minds of the leaders of Russia, to turn from their invasion and to seek peace. We pray you would strengthen the invading soldiers with the resolve of human decency and compassion and a miraculous empowerment to lay down their arms in the face of such egregious destruction and loss of innocent life. We pray for the leaders of Ukraine, to protect and preserve them from harm and to fill them with such a spirit of travail and prayer that it touches heaven and changes the course of life on earth for their country.

We pray for the leaders of governments around the world, for wisdom and courage for the facing of this hour. We rebuke the spirit of fear that would cower in the face of evil rather than confront it. We cry out for an awakening of the church around the world, to realize both our responsibility and our power to intervene and exercise our Kingdom authority for such a time as this. 

We pray for the many relief agencies at work on behalf of the Ukrainian people. We speak Jesus into them now in the power of your Spirit—courage, perseverance, love, and joy in the face of utter desolation. We put upon them the full armor of God so that they may stand. And we pray you fill their hearts and hands with miracles. Multiply relief in their hands as fishes and loaves that can feed multitudes. Fill their words with power to still storms in Jesus name. Release miracles through doctors and nurses as they rescue the perishing and care for the dying. 

We pray you would leave in the wake of this evil human-made disaster and all its desolation the seeds of a great awakening and the raising up of a generation who would rebuild the ruins and who would be called the repairer of broken walls, and the restorer of streets to dwell in. Awaken your Church now, in all places, to imagine and conceive of this great awakening now, in the place of prayer, on earth as it is in heaven. 

Finally, and most urgently, we pray for the millions of children who are crying and afraid, many of whom may be lost and alone, wondering if they will ever see their fathers again, longing for the safety of their homes, anxious about their next meal, afraid for their very survival. We pray for the salvation of their fathers and the holy uprising of their mothers. Holy Spirit send wave upon wave of compassion in the midst of trauma, light in darkness, and the peace that only love can bring in the midst of utter madness.

Agreeing with the Psalmist prayer for the ages, we cry out: Let God arise, Let His enemies be scattered; Let those also who hate Him flee before Him. (Psalm 68:1)

We ask these things, declaring the things that are not yet as though they were already, believing in your power to do beyond all we can ask or even imagine through your power at work within us, and trusting in the strong name of Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray, Amen.

Wake up sleeper, and rise from the dead. . . . 

Your turn: 

NEXT STEPS

Please share this prayer. As we see the tragic unfoldings in Ukraine we long to engage. This is the Holy Spirit welling up within us with groans too deep for words. And yet we need words to articulate those groanings through which to agree in the name of Jesus. There are many strong prayers circulating. There cannot possibly be enough. We offer this one for such use across the Global Church and our local churches. We need no attribution, recognition or credit whatsoever. Each one of us these days has an enormous stewardship of influence with unimaginable reach. Sow this prayer in your own heart, home, church, and city, across your online networks, and wherever you are so led. We will share a printable and sharable PDF version early this week. For now feel free to cut and paste and send however you would. 

Note: Seedbed’s Board of Directors is meeting this Tuesday to pray and discern how we might “do more than pray after we have prayed” as it relates to Ukraine. How might we sow for great awakening? And when I say “we” I don’t mean our little organization. I mean “us.” More on that to come. 

For the Awakening,
J.D. Walt
Sower-in-Chief
seedbed.com