Article January 2, 2017 Issue

Can one prayer help end a war?

Judith Hardy Olson

The disturbing viral photo from Syria—of a little five-year-old boy, bewildered, bloodied, and muddied, rescued from the rubble caused by air strikes—was heartbreaking and compelling to all who saw it in the news. “Can one photo end a war?” read the caption of an NPR report acknowledging humanity’s yearning to help, seen in an immediate uptick in humanitarian aid for Syria. Many want to do much more. But “there isn’t an obvious mechanism through which we can turn our anger and compassion into change,” ends the report.

Mechanism, no. But there is a powerful tool each and every one of us can employ that will help the people in war-torn regions and hasten the end of war: prayer that affirms God’s love and care for His entire creation.

Many can attest to the fact that prayer helped bring down the Berlin Wall—prayers on both sides of that wall. Throughout history, the prayerful efforts of people all over the world, whose thought was on the side of the omnipotence of God, good—all-inclusive, universal divine Love—have had profound effects on humanity, righting men’s wrongs and lifting mankind higher. And they always will. How?

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