Helping Students Pray for Afghanistan (and the persecuted church)
As we watch the horrifying events unfold in Afghanistan I have thought a lot about how I should help the students in our church process them. I have wondered how they are reacting to these images. Their world is so unlike mine at their age, saturated with the news of the world. But are they really aware, or is this just another blip in the litany of breaking stories that define the “news” of our day? Even more importantly, how can I help them gain a greater view of the gospel through what is happening? How can I help them gain a global perspective of what God is up to in the world? How can I be careful to point students to Jesus amidst such tragedy, and compel them to pursue and treasure him more? Here are a couple of thoughts:
Help them understand the true weight of sin on God’s good creation
We are reminded that things are not as they ought to be when we feel the weight of sin by encountering the profound impact of its consequences. We need this reminder. We need it often.
Today I watched a short video of a teenage girl screaming through the barricade set up around the parameter of Kabul’s international airport. She begged and pleaded with soldiers to allow her to escape this new threat to her young life. After watching that I sat in numbness for a brief time. I honestly didn’t know what to even do with it. Was I angry? Was I sad? Surely both were present in the weight I felt in my chest.
In that moment I was reminded that the brokenness of this world is not how God intended it to be. The shalom for which I was made is shattered here. It cannot be found here. This thought always lifts my eyes to the Lord. This thought always reminds me that we need rescue, and that rescue must come from outside of us. Every single person needs rescue. I need to take this opportunity to help students feel the weight of sin and to once again point them to the only Savior.
Help them understand that there is only one true safe place
The last 18 months have afforded us a wonderful opportunity to proclaim the loud and clear message to students that the only truly safe place a person can be is in Christ. The situation in Afghanistan offers yet another opportunity to do that. We should be careful to pay attention to the reaction of church leaders and pastors in the coming days. We need to be careful to allow them to speak to our students. Our students need to see the confidence that can only be grounded in the presence of the Spirit and the peace of Christ that rules a heart that is focused on him.
Because we live in a world that is broken we live in a world that surrounds us with threat. Although I’m not suggesting we haunt our students with unfiltered images to stoke fear, I am saying that the gospel does proclaim to us that no safety can be found outside of Christ. None of us know the number of our days. None of us can rest in any promise of a comfortable tomorrow—of a comfortable next moment, but the gospel also proclaims the eternal safety that is found in being in Christ.
Our brothers and sisters in Afghanistan who are in Christ, despite the chaos and threat bearing down on them, are more safe than a person who is outside of Christ while living in affluency and comfort in our context. The tragedy unfolding in Afghanistan is a great opportunity for us to cut through the deception of the world’s ideas about security and the temporary focus that so often distracts our hearts. We need to understand this idea of safety within the context of eternity, and we need to call the attention of our students to that concept frequently.
Help them understand God’s sovereignty in weaving together his Big Story
My first instinct as I watched the news out of Afghanistan was to pray that somehow this new season would be thwarted, that something would happen to prevent this persecution and suffering from coming. Without getting into the politics of it all, I prayed that minds would be changed and that our troops would remain and continue to protect the people of Afghanistan from the fierce religious oppression of the Taliban they had previously endured. Although there is nothing wrong with such a desire, I quickly was confronted by the fact that that prayer was far too small.
As missionaries are forced to leave, Hope is not leaving with them. God has used the waning season of relative peace that Afghanistan enjoyed over the past few decades to open gospel access and draw Afghanis to himself. Indigenous believers have been discipled and trained for such a time as this. We need to tell our students this story, and help them be mindful of how our little slice of history makes sense within the grand narrative God has been weaving throughout all of history. That history is his story, and he is sovereign over it. Even when we struggle to make sense of the situations and circumstances of life, we can have supreme confidence in that! God is sovereign and good in all seasons.
Help them understand that there exists no threat to the gospel
Christians will face heavy persecution in the coming days in Afghanistan, while the world watches on. From all accounts, the Taliban will make every effort to wipe any trace of Christianity from the region. They will terrorize house churches and kill church leaders. But although this terrorist organization may threaten the ability of the church to meet openly, although they threaten the safety of Christ-followers, they pose absolutely no threat to the gospel. None. Zero.
We take this opportunity to do our best to reveal the spiritual reality that our physical eyes often fail to see—especially when those physical eyes are overwhelmed by the tragedy and peril around us. We need to be reminded that in Christ we have been born of an imperishable seed, and not even the most fearsome enemy can destroy that. In fact, no matter how terrorizing or murderous the Taliban might be, history has only proven that the blood of martyrs only serves as seed for exponential gospel harvest. Am I helping our students gain that vision of the gospel? Am I helping them anchor their confidence there and in the One who is redeeming all things by the blood of his cross and uniting all things in himself? This world is surely groaning, but that groaning will not have the last word. Our groaning is in anticipation of the full realization of God’s promises. And he is faithful.
Help them understand how to understand our place in God’s family
I have been reminded of passages like 1 Peter 5:9 that calls us to be sober-minded in order to resist our enemy and to be reminded that we have brothers and sisters throughout the world who share in suffering. Our students need to be mindful of this. Christians in Afghanistan are not just believers “over there.” They are our family. They are our brothers and sisters. And the Scriptures call us to be mindful of their suffering. Even more, we are called to share in their suffering!
The greatest way we can do this is through prayer, not by engaging in political arguing over social media about who’s to blame for their suffering. We need to persevere in prayer for them. But we need to be careful to pray for them in light of the gospel, in light of the Kingdom. Of course we can and should pray for God to protect our brothers and sisters. It is right and good for us to pray for their physical deliverance. But we should also pray that those who are suffering would keep their eyes fixed on the author and perfector of their faith. We need to pray that they would lean into Jesus. We need to pray that they would know what is the immeasurable greatness of God’s power toward them, what is the hope to which God has called them, and who they are in light of the riches of God’s glorious inheritance in his saints (adapted from Ephesians 1:15-20ff). We pray that they would be bold in the face of this suffering and threat, and that this boldness would be anchored in Jesus as the object of their most fervent trust. Finally, we pray that many would also place their trust in Jesus as Lord as they observe the witness of his saints.
Let’s be intentional as student ministry leaders to help our students think globally about their Christian identity in our world.