That we pray about challenges, including war, truly matters.

A powerful story of a war between two nations being halted holds compelling lessons for these times. In this story, from the Bible’s book of Second Kings, we are shown that everyone—both oppressors and oppressed—was surrounded by God’s “horses and chariots of fire” (see 6:8–23). This spiritual revelation, made known by the prophet Elisha, was an assurance of deliverance for all, because he had seen this very means bring deliverance before (see II Kings 2:12).

In the New Testament, deliverance, through acknowledging life in and of God, was no more powerfully demonstrated than by Christ Jesus. His undeviating recognition that all real being is found in God, included the corollary fact that whatever is unlike God’s infinite goodness could not actually be the reality it claims to be. Jesus proved God’s control under the severest of circumstances, dispelling any notion that some situation could halt the supremacy of God, divine Love. His understanding of God destroyed error, the belief that Love does not hold the control. He saw this error not as a reality, or even as some lesser, temporary power, but as a deception wrongly believed.