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Let your prayers embrace Libya
Originally appeared on spirituality.com
As The Christian Science Monitor’s analysis of what’s been characterized as a civil war in Libya makes clear, the situation is shifting in a way that could split the country or leave Muammar Qaddafi in power (“Why Libya’s Qaddafi could survive like Saddam in 1991,” March 8, 2011). The government’s advanced weaponry and willingness to attack its own citizens from the air make it a fearful opponent. Efforts to spread rumors about what the Qaddafi forces are planning help to intensify fear, uncertainty, and distrust. It appears that there’s an effort to split the rebel forces and to blind them in the fog of war.
Prayer for an intelligent and healing outcome to this situation is urgently needed. The Monitor article notes that one reason rebels in Iraq didn’t end the rule of Saddam Hussein was their failure to unite their efforts.
Christian Science offers the inspired thought that all can be united under God’s direction. God is divine Mind, the one intelligence, and the root of wisdom. Our prayers can affirm that each individual and group striving for freedom, whether in Iraq or Libya, can yield to Mind’s guidance. The one Mind’s purpose for all its creation is always to preserve life and unite all under the banner of good. As the prophet Zechariah wrote, “Behold, I will save my people from the east country, and from the west country” (8:7 ). All who love good can unite in prayer for peace and prosperity in Libya through the power of the one God to rule the nation.
Under God’s will, good has the ultimate power, the final word.
The role of God as Shepherd to His people is a theme that runs throughout the Bible, and in one passage God declares His disapproval of those who abuse and injure His sheep. Expressing His determination to seek out His sheep and save them, the Bible reports God saying, “As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered; so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day” (Ezek. 34:12 ).
Even now, this loving Shepherd is with those who are striving for freedom, strengthening them, giving them wisdom, guarding them. Our prayers can insist on this divine presence, and also recognize that the same Shepherd can guide the affairs of nations so that wisdom prevails at the national level in Libya and among those at NATO, the United Nations, and elsewhere. This Shepherd loves the man and woman of His creation, and His purpose is always to save and to heal each one. As Mary Baker Eddy put it in her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: “The power of God brings deliverance to the captive. No power can withstand divine Love” (p. 224 ).
Under God’s will, good has the ultimate power, the final word. Divine Truth can bring to light whatever the forces working on behalf of good need to know, and divine Love can open the way for help to come in places where it’s most needed. As we firmly claim the one Shepherd to be our guide—and to guide those working for freedom in Libya and elsewhere—we are making a powerful contribution to peace.