How to Pray for Ukraine — Carol McLeod Ministries | Find Joy in Your Everyday — Carol McLeod Ministries | Find Joy in Your Everyday Life
We receive hundreds of desperate prayer requests every month asking for prayer for finances … for health … for purpose … and for children.
Many of the prayer requests are heart-breaking as people from around the world beg me to pray for release from depression … from suicidal thoughts … from loneliness … from fear and worry.
Some of these heartfelt prayer requests are in broken English or are written in other languages.
The e-mails come from the Philippines … Trinidad … Great Britain … Germany … Thailand … Australia … Mexico … and many, many other countries.
My team is faithful to pray for each request and to answer each request with a personal response.
As I read the requests that come in … I often cry.
The angst is so genuine … the needs are overwhelming …let’s face it … people everywhere are in pain.
I am a “fixer” by nature … and I want to fix each person’s situation. I am unable to mend these broken situations in the natural … so I make an even more powerful choice … I get on my knees and I pray.
History belongs to those who pray.
This week, we received what I believe to be the most devastating request that we have ever received in 17 years of ministry.
Even now … as I think about it and write about it … I am sobbing on behalf of a nation.
I couldn’t read the words due to the language in which they had been written. Someone from my team translated them for me …
Прошу про молитву за Україну!!!
“I ask for prayer for the Ukraine!”
My friends … we must pray. The time is now.
We must pray for the Ukraine.
We must pray against the evil tyranny of Putin and ask our good, good Father to release the Ukraine from his abhorrent grip.
Putin’s actions are sinister and Hitler-like. His aggression cannot stand.
As believers in Jesus Christ, our response to crisis should always be rooted in prayer.
Let’s pray …
“Our Father in heaven, we ask that You would interfere in the affairs of mankind.
We pray that You, in Your omnipotence, would stop bombs from falling and guns from shooting.
We pray for Your host of angel armies to camp about those who trust in You.
We ask for those same angel armies to protect the innocent … to shield children and the elderly … and to defend the precious people of the Ukraine.
Father God, would You comfort those who are suffering and heal those who are injured?
Would You protect the minds and the souls of the children who have seen unimaginable acts of destruction?
Lord Jesus, we pray that Putin and that all of those who surround him would turn to You. We pray in power and in faith that Putin would become an agent of Your peace. We know that we are asking for a miracle, dear Father, but we believe in miracles!
We believe in the miracle-working power of the most-high God!
Father, I pray that the children of the Ukraine would know Your presence in the fire just as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did!
We declare today that our God… Jehovah-Nissi … the God of Victory … would be a “refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble.” (Psalm 46:1)
In the powerful and loving Name of Jesus, I pray, Amen.”
I know that many of you are wrestling with how a loving Father could allow this to happen to the innocent people of the Ukraine.
Wrestling with God is nothing new, nor is it sin.
However, when we choose to wrestle, we must go to the Bible to be the referee for our questions and doubts.
The words of Jesus are very clear on this disturbing topic:
“These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.” – John 16:33
We live in a fallen and broken world.
We live in the warzone of good vs. evil … right vs. wrong … the wicked vs. the righteous.
However, we can also live in the certainty that His eternal arms hold us even in the days of deepest and darkest pain.
“The eternal God is a dwelling place and underneath are the everlasting arms.” – Deuteronomy 33:27
Prayer matters, my friends. It matters very, very much.
Our prayers are more powerful than the fastest fighting jets … the most up-to-date weaponry … and the most strategic battle plan.
When we pray … hell is paralyzed and heaven is set into action.
So we will be counted among those who in history who will pray on.
We will pray in the night, and we will pray in the day.
We will pray for peace when hell rages around us.
We will pray for protection when the storm is relentless.
We will pray for the Ukraine.
We will pray.
Thanks for listening to my heart this week. As you know by now, my heart is truly not a perfect heart, but it is a heart that is filled to overflowing with gratitude for the life I have been given and for the people who walk with me. And, it continues to be a heart that is relentlessly chasing after God and all that He is.
