Surrounded 1: Chariots of Fire
Author: Andrew Comiskey
September 30, 2019
It can be tough to burn with hope for some LGBT+ persons; allergic to chastity, alive to sensational new ‘sexualities’, they frame us as ‘haters’ and our fire dims.
As we prayerfully ‘Become Good News’ (starting Oct. 16th), it may help us to recall that God is igniting a global army of persons—each one divinely commissioned to do his or her part to liberate loved ones from enslaving ‘freedoms’. Like a station in a relay, every one of us can help a vulnerable pilgrim take the next step in discovering Jesus as the source of true liberty.
That helps me. Nearly overwhelmed by the gender fracturing in our day, I fret for lost ones and assume too much responsibility (and thus guilt) for their rescue. Recently I noticed a disoriented looking man after Mass who looked like he desperately needed to talk to someone about his divided life. I was happy to begin praying under my breath for him but failed to attend to him due to pressing issues that awaited me elsewhere.
Burdened by my omission, I confessed later to my pastor who wisely and simply said: ‘Andrew, do you not trust God to work throughout His Church to awaken a team of persons who will bring many strugglers into His freedom?’ He referred to the communion of the saints—a great cloud of witnesses in heaven and on earth who advocate for the saving of many lives, relentlessly. Some pray, others–in a variety of positions and relationships–launch out as answers to those prayers.
God assured me that day that there are many more for us in this ‘underground railroad’ than there are against us. I just needed to be reminded. We need Jesus to open the eyes of our hearts to behold what is going on in the Spirit, just as Elisha did for the poor man who went out to battle and could only see ‘an army of horses and chariots surrounding his city.’ Elisha said to him: ‘Don’t be afraid. Those who are with us are more than those who are with the enemy… Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha’ (2 Kings 6: 15-17).
Open the eyes of our hearts to these chariots of fire–saints burning with simple, wise love for the lost–both in the unseen realms and in the unexpected partnerships God is forging here on earth.
I write this in route from Cordoba Argentina to Santiago Chile. My dear Argentine friends, Catholic, are digging a deep well of ‘living water’ in their university city and have prayed for creative ways to reach young LGBT+ persons. God united them with an old friend of theirs, an evangelical woman who runs a theatrical company in town; she sought them out for help in providing real answers for the young people she directs who are divided in their sexuality and seek a better way.
They are crying out for Jesus. He hears their cries and He is summoning you and me to pray and to act. We can do so urgently yet without strife, knowing that a global team is being assembled to set captives free, one station, one leg of the relay, one chariot igniting another’s, one at a time.
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