Our praying PM

Our leaders are working flat out in their command centres. The stakes are as high as they’ve ever been. We’re at war. War with a virus. Everyone is being called to high alert. Our way of life is being challenged and changed on a daily, if not hourly, basis. Devastation fills our screens. Predictions and projections are catastrophic beyond comprehension.

My personal conviction is that we need to fall into line, not simply with our government and health authorities, but to care for each other. We need genuine concern for one another. We’ve all had a taste of what happens when people act to protect their own interests—it results in the needy, the elderly, the sick, and the housebound, being unable to buy basic necessities such as toilet paper, sanitiser, disinfectant, and staples like rice and flour. We’ve witnessed the panic buying of gym equipment, freezers and fridges, meats, and now alcohol. I’m just grateful Australia doesn’t have the panic buying of guns, that we see in other places.

We’ve seen some remarkable things in politics recently. Cooperation across ideological and political divides. Working together for the good of our nation. Federal, states, and territories in this together. I believe that a little humility goes a long way. Now is not the time for the narcissists to strut their stuff. Now is the time to model calm, restraint, care, cooperation and love for our fellow humans. Now is the time to acknowledge that we we need help managing ourselves, our families, our communities, our countries, let alone this world with its disasters, diseases, and deaths. I believe that now is the time to call on our Father in heaven. Now is the time to pray. God knows, it can’t hurt can it? If there is a God, and he made this world, and we keep ignoring him and living as though he’s not there, then it doesn’t make sense to ignore him and live as though he’s not there and doesn’t care. Isn’t it more logical to turn back and seek his help? Wouldn’t it be wise to ask his forgiveness? If he’s concerned for the people he has made, and wants our best, and can offer us help, then what do we have to lose by coming back to him? In humility, of course,  and prayerfully dependent.

So, I’m thankful for our leaders. And especially for our Prime Minister, who encouraged us to pray, and who asked us to pray for him and other leaders, as he also prays for us. I’m so grateful to know that we have a prime minister who knows he’s not God, and who humbly prays to the One who is.