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Continuing prayer for Nigerians who were kidnapped

A Christian Science perspective.

  • By Judy Cole

Twenty young women were recently kidnapped in Nigeria, allegedly by the terrorist group Boko Haram, following the nearly 300 schoolgirls abducted in April of which 53 escaped and 223 remain missing.

Reports of more danger can embolden, not lessen, our resolve to help protect those who have been kidnapped. While we can’t hide our children or anyone away from the world in locked rooms or protective bubbles, we can pray to utilize the laws of God to protect them.

These girls and women and others throughout the world need continued healing prayers. To me this situation is a call to take deeper drinks of Spirit. The founder of The Christian Science Monitor, Mary Baker Eddy, explained, “The more difficult seems the material condition to be overcome by Spirit, the stronger should be our faith and the purer our love” (“Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” p. 410).

Turning to God, Spirit, in prayer is the most significant factor in safely returning these girls and women to their homes and preventing further kidnappings.

I’ve felt the need to intercede on behalf of those who were kidnapped through a proper understanding of God’s ever-presence and omnipotence. God alone motivates, guards, guides, and governs. As His image, we each express God. Because God is Spirit, the true identity of each of us is spiritual. Therefore, one loving Father and His children are inseparable.

Understanding that has enabled me to reject fear and complacency. News that abductions, abuse, and slavery are commonplace does not justify it or make it inevitable.

The Bible encourages us to “be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might” (Ephesians 6:10). God is Love, and understanding that enables us to utilize that divine power for good as Daniel did.

As his story is told in the Bible, Daniel was captured and taken as a slave while in his mid-teens. In a day, he lost his freedom, his family, and his country, and was surrounded by danger. In one situation the king’s advisers plotted against him, which resulted in Daniel being thrown into a den of lions. Yet God’s protecting power delivered him without harm. Daniel explained, “My God sent his angel, and he shut the mouths of the lions” (Daniel 6:22, New International Version).

Replacing the shocking picture of the inhumanity and greed of the kidnappers with the understanding that God’s will is supremely good and universal, works to dissolve indifference and hardness of heart.

To conjecture about possible negative outcomes or to ruminate over “if only” regrets is not helpful. Instead, admitting man’s innate spiritual innocence will help unclasp the stronghold of terror.

The basis of divine power was discovered in Christian Science by Mrs. Eddy, who, speaking of Jesus’ prayers, explained his “humble prayers were deep and conscientious protests of Truth, – of man’s likeness to God and of man’s unity with Truth and Love” (Science and Health, p. 12).

So as we become consciously aware of these divine realities, an irresistible, healing force is brought to correct wrongful human conditions. Then we will see more good prevail as Jonah did when he explained, “I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice” (Jonah 2:2).
 

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