praying for peace

The other evening I met with a small group from my church here in Chattanooga.  They’d asked me to update them on Ukraine, and on what our plans are after my fiancée and I marry in July. I told my friends how so many of my friends in Kyiv prayed as they protested three months for a change in government, and then saw God’s dramatic answer to prayer when the corrupt government of Yanukovich fled, abdicating power to the Parliament, where it belonged according to Ukraine’s constitution. Then I told them my perspective on the current conflicts in east Ukraine, based on what I saw while living in Kyiv, heard from my friends, and read in Russian-language Ukrainian news.

One person asked me what I though Russia would do.  I don’t know, I answered, but I know that God answered the street-protesters’ prayers after three months. My pastor in Kyiv called that a miracle of prayer.  So we turned to Daniel 2, read the miracle of prayer there, when God saved Daniel and his friends’ lives in answer to prayer, and gave the promise that the kingdom of heaven will grow, crushing earthly kingdoms, and filling the entire earth.  I’m encouraged that this is something God does, not us: the stone representing his kingdom wasn’t cut by human hands, but was a work of God’s grace.

I don’t know what will happen in Ukraine. My heart breaks for the Ukrainian people, for my friends and the many I haven’t met, who simply long to live their lives in peace, to be allowed to run their country without interference from Russia or the EU, but with good relations with their eastern and western neighbors. So, we prayed.  We plead with the God of heaven, who still answers prayer, who is still the King of kings, the Tsar of tsars, asking him to have mercy on Ukraine and protect her from those who would do evil.

Join me in praying for peace in Ukraine.