A Facebook Friend asked why we were awake, sharing posts at this hour, somewhere around 4am. This is my truthful answer to her…

God’s calling on my heart to stand with the oppressed while praying for the oppressor is weighing heavily on me. Many, many times in my life I’ve been in the place to forgive those who have hurt and even harmed me. Please don’t think I equate my circumstances with what’s going on in the world today. I simply recall my own difficult times to attempt to better understand the pain that others carry.

With the last person I have been able to forgive, it took me over 40 years of praying for us both to be freed of our sinful ways—him, for the things he did to me and for myself, for my own dreadful sins against others.

I take very seriously that we are all sinners and will always have a sinful nature, whether unsaved or saved by God’s grace. I also take seriously the command to pray for hearts to be changed. People truly dislike the concept of praying for our oppressors just as strongly as we stand with those who are oppressed. I pray for wisdom in these times of justified anger and expressed pain. I pray that I will balance well my tendencies toward anger and the hope of peace. I absolutely believe that the greatest outcome to the evil in my personal part of this world is that I will spend my eternity in heaven with the worst of my offenders because we have both repented and chosen to live for Christ.

That’s what keeps me up at night.