{"id":5371,"date":"2014-08-25T03:54:08","date_gmt":"2014-08-25T03:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/?p=5371"},"modified":"2014-08-25T20:29:28","modified_gmt":"2014-08-25T20:29:28","slug":"praying-for-the-peace-of-ferguson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/?p=5371","title":{"rendered":"Praying for the peace of Ferguson"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/sup>If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.<\/em> 2 Chronicles 7:14, KJV<\/p>\n

I knew about the Watts riots of 1965. I had heard about the riots breaking out in 1967 in places like Newark, Detroit, and Milwaukee. I watched the horror of the violence of 1992 in Los Angeles following the Rodney King assault trial. But I never<\/em> imagined that my neighboring town of Ferguson would rank right up there among the others\u2014an infamous distinction, indeed.<\/p>\n

What do you do<\/em> when civil unrest and bedlam breaks out in your own backyard? You pray, <\/em>first of all; and<\/em> you pray with others, <\/em>too.<\/p>\n

As I sat glued to my TV during the first week of agitation, I prayed. All of my other prayer concerns fell aside as I set my face like flint to defy the darkness descending upon my neighbors. This warfare was not with flesh and blood, but against the enemy of all men\u2019s souls, and I knew that my Savior, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, had outfitted me with His authority and equipped me to stand in His name. I also knew that I was far from alone in my stand. Multitudes from my region, throughout America, and around the world were\u00a0taking their\u00a0stand as well, interceding for the city where I had lunch with my sister just four days before.<\/p>\n

Violence continued into the second week. As I took a walk Monday morning after another night of chaos, I felt led of the Lord to walk into a primarily minority\u00a0apartment complex\u00a0just off of my normal route. I saw a young woman sitting on her porch as she watched roofers repair old storm damage.<\/p>\n

Ask her if she needs prayer<\/em>, I heard the Lord whisper. I hesitated; but then I picked my way through the roofing supplies to her porch. She didn\u2019t need prayer.<\/p>\n

Hmmm<\/em>\u2026 I thought. And then it hit me\u2014was she was concerned about\u00a0Ferguson<\/em>? When she responded that she sure was, I asked if I could pray with her about it and she agreed. She gripped my hand firmly as we asked God for the peace and safety of the people\u00a0in our neighboring town. When I said Amen<\/em>, she\u2014a twenty-something, tattooed black lady\u2014opened up to me\u2014a nearly sixty year-old conservative white woman.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese people are just lootin\u2019 and makin\u2019 a mess and don\u2019t care about no one! I\u2019m sick of all of this\u2014it\u2019s the only thing on TV these days! It\u2019s gotta come to an end!\u201d<\/p>\n

And thus week two began, and the Lord revealed a new job for me to do\u2014I would start finding strangers with whom to pray for the peace of Ferguson.<\/p>\n

I started in my own town.<\/p>\n