[Please join me in praying for children, families, and our future on Thursdays this year.]
“You have taken note of trouble and grief and placed them under your control.” (Psalm 10:14 GW)
Several years ago I had a new thought: what would my generation have been like if Roe v. Wade had not allowed the deaths of millions of us? What friends might I have had? What scientific discoveries might have come out of us? What leaders we need now might have been birthed? What beauty, art, music, creativity, or other amazing thing never happened because the person or persons who were supposed to create it were never born? Such a loss.
Loss is nothing new to God’s people. We hear the story of Moses who floated in a basket and was rescued by the Pharaoh’s daughter, but what about the rest of the baby boys who were ordered to be murdered? (Exodus 1:22) We hear the story of Jesus and his family who escaped to Egypt, saving Jesus’s life, but what about the rest of the families around Bethlehem whose baby boys age two and under were murdered by Herod’s decree? (Matthew 2:16-18) Loss isn’t just a Biblical reality. So many German men died in World War 1 that a “fatherless” generation, chose Adolf Hitler to be their “Führer und Reichskanzler” (“Leader and Guide”), leading to World War 2 — and millions more lost to death and destruction. We can list genocides in Russia, Armenia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Cambodia, Sudan, and other countries. For each of these situations, loss has devastating consequences.
The writer of Psalm 102 understood loss.
“Hear my prayer, Lord;
let my cry for help come to you.
Do not hide your face from me
when I am in distress.
Turn your ear to me;
when I call, answer me quickly.
For my days vanish like smoke;
my bones burn like glowing embers.
My heart is blighted and withered like grass;
I forget to eat my food.
In my distress I groan aloud
and am reduced to skin and bones.” (Psalm 102:1-5 NIV)
Yet, the writer also knew the One who comforts those who know loss.
“But you, Lord, sit enthroned forever;
your renown endures through all generations.
You will arise and have compassion on Zion,
for it is time to show favor to her;
the appointed time has come.
For her stones are dear to your servants;
her very dust moves them to pity.
The nations will fear the name of the Lord,
all the kings of the earth will revere your glory.
For the Lord will rebuild Zion
and appear in his glory.
He will respond to the prayer of the destitute;
he will not despise their plea.” (Psalm 102:12-17 NIV)
The Psalmist knew that only the Lord could fill in the places of loss with his presence, his grace, and his mercy. Only the Lord can provide the gaps where artists, leaders, creative ideas, scientists, and others have been lost. Only the Lord can be the Father to the fatherless, the caregiver of the widow, and the One who sets the lonely in families. Because God is all these things we have hope for future generations.
“Let this be written for a future generation,
that a people not yet created may praise the Lord:
‘The Lord looked down from his sanctuary on high,
from heaven he viewed the earth,
to hear the groans of the prisoners
and release those condemned to death.’
So the name of the Lord will be declared in Zion
and his praise in Jerusalem
when the peoples and the kingdoms
assemble to worship the Lord.” (Psalm 102:18-22 NIV)
God,
We sing praise to you and your name and rejoice before you. You are a father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, and the One who sets the lonely in families. Thank you for viewing the earth and watching over the many people that you have created. Thank you for the ways in which you show yourself to us, especially when we are experiencing loss of peers, fathers and mothers, good leaders, talented artists, gifted scientists, and others who would have impacted this world for your Glory. We pray today that you will hear our prayers and let us cry to you for help. Do not hide your face from our distress, but turn your ear to us. God, we pray in the name of Jesus for children, youth, and young adults of this era who have experienced so much loss. Whether through family circumstances, deaths by abortion or other violence, covid-19 related shutdowns, war, disease, or attack by the enemy of our souls, we pray that Holy Spirit would not only comfort them in their grief and loss, but would meet their emotional, social, spiritual, physical, and relational needs. We pray your grace would fill in the gaps in their lives and they will seek you and your hope for their future. May your peace that passes all understanding guard them and fill them as they look toward the future. We ask in Jesus’s name, Amen.
“Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: ‘Every Hebrew boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.'” (Exodus 1:22 NIV)
“When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:
‘A voice is heard in Ramah,
weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children
and refusing to be comforted,
because they are no more.'” (Matthew 2:16-18 NIV)
“Sing to God, sing in praise of his name,
extol him who rides on the clouds;
rejoice before him—his name is the Lord.
A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows,
is God in his holy dwelling.
God sets the lonely in families,
he leads out the prisoners with singing;
but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.” (Psalm 68:4-6 NIV)