Thoughts and Prayers Pt III

...a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

 - From Psalm 51

The Man or Woman of God is a solitary soul. He ascends a mountain, alone, to pray and commune with the Father. She finds herself alone, the only one serving, at the Master's feet. He is laughed at and mocked by scores of false prophets. She is the only one left in Jericho, with the desire and a plan to help the Hebrews take it. 

The LORD, Himself, was a Man of Sorrows. By the time He set his sights on Jerusalem, his crowd had dwindled down to a dozen or so . . . and even they dispersed when it got real.

An angry mob stirred itself up against Him, and delivered Him to the Cross.

The Crossroad always starts with a crowd . . . but it ends with a Single Person. The world's solutions; it's causes, it's passions . . . always start with a crowd, but ends with an overwhelming gang, that feeds on its own anger. 

Thoughts and Prayers, for public consumption, are meaningless. But one devout and sincere Woman of God, secretly locking herself away in her study, can think about the victims of a mass shooting, and then say a prayer for them. Yet without drawing any attention to herself, she will have done more than twelve nightly newscasts. 

Thoughts and prayers for the victims do work! How do we know they don't? Do we actually go out and ask the survivors: "Did prayer work?" We don't know.

But how many people offering "Thoughts and Prayers" actually do so, on behalf of prospective shooters? Do we pray for them? Aren't they the ones we should be praying for? And how do we know that such prayers haven't already turned down a score of prospective shooters?

We don't know.

This idea of "Thoughts and Prayers" may have become the rallying cry for an angry mob . . . the way that "Give us Barabbas!" ushered in History's greatest crime. It can be anything . . . when it comes to mob mentality.

But God Himself occupies a very quiet and private place . . . the heart of a devout man or woman. Thoughts and Prayers may be uttered there. 

And they'll do worlds of good.

And nobody will ever know it.