Praying Our Way Out

This essay is being written during the Pandemic of 2020. The news, a trusted and not so trusted source of information telecasting our progress toward developing a vaccine, uncovering effective antibodies, and the manufacturing and distribution of medical equipment crowd the airwaves. At one time we were getting medical briefings on television every day. It is strikingly disappointing that prayer is missing from the public and governmental conversation in any meaningful way. There is a sense that something is missing without prayer; an emptiness – a lonely feeling.

There is no question that science and medicine will play a huge role in our personal, national and international recovery. Nevertheless, all medical discovery starts and ends with God’s providence. In other words the miraculous discoveries in science and medicine are ultimately gifts from above. They all trace back to God’s creation and His invisible hand.

God will and can help us through this very challenging time. God will guide and enable our brilliant medical personal and scientists. We should also remember that we can do a whole lot right and it turn out wrong – and do a whole lot wrong and it turn out right. Prayer can even help us stumble into a cure. Medical history is replete with serendipitous cures and remedies.

My auntie-mother, the caring women who raised me early in my life passed away a few months ago; a week or so before the news about the virus was breaking. She was in a nursing home. Her symptoms were similar to what so many have experienced with the Coronavirus. There is no easy way of knowing if she like those early recipients of this deadly disease for many of the elderly. Although I miss her, it’s not time to be bitter or questioning about my loss but to be prayerful about what we might lose. It’s time to pray for decision-makers and game-changers; national and state politicians, our medical personal and first responders, researchers and scientists, providers of necessary services, our neighbors, families and more. We must be hopeful that we can pray our way out of this deadly pandemic!

Prayer has been such a vital part of our national heritage; prayer breakfast’s, prayer vigils and political leaders invoking and encouraging prayer when we found ourselves in a crises. During the depression era, FDR reached out to the citizenry, I ask that our people devote themselves to prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let the words of prayer be on our lips. This is not the time to fall deeper into secularism. It is the time to walk up the ladder to God, gazing upward for answers and remedies for this horrific plague which is ours to defeat.

Although the following Biblical event is a bit forced as applied to what we are going through it does illustrate the efficacy of prayer and provides a useful analogy. Paul and Silas were locked up in jail for preaching the gospel; a common occurrence at the time. When they sang and prayed in jail the doors were miraculously opened for them. They prayed their way out! We have been cooped up in our homes for a couple of months, practicing social distancing as we have been instructed by authorities. There could me much more of this to come. We will never feel like we have been sprung and de-isolated if we do not get the medical support we need and ultimately a vaccine. Praying our way out sounds like a pretty good idea right now.

Joseph Hutchison, Rochester Hills Michigan, 2020

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