Article July 1, 2019 Issue

Reluctant to pray for the world? Roll that ‘stone’ away.

Karen Neff

Today I am praying for the world—including countries in desperate turmoil, individuals in deep need, people leaving their homes hoping to find a better life. But … where do I begin? There seem to be so many problems in the world. Can one individual’s prayers really make a difference? Is prayer enough?

Sometimes, a sense of hopeless futility discourages me from praying for the world. When I was dealing with this kind of reluctance one morning, I had a conversation with myself about it. It went something like this:

I know that when Christ Jesus rose from the dead, he was in a tomb sealed shut by a boulder. Yet, he didn’t stay in the sepulcher; the stone was rolled away. Did he have enough personal strength to roll back the stone in order to extricate himself? No. But he was able to rely on his divine Father, as he had said we should do whenever we need help.

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