William G. Johnsson
I'm ready to say good riddance to the old year. Unlamented and unsung, 2002 is now history, and I am glad.
With all the sad and terrible things the year brought, its dominant note was anxiety. It beset us before and behind and on all sides with apprehension and fear. Warnings of al-Qaeda strikes. A wave of child kidnappings and murder. The stock market plummeting. Bombings in Bali. Mayhem in Moscow.
And capping the terror, the three weeks in October when those in the Washington, D.C., area lived in the ever-tightening grip of a sniper. Despite all the resources of high technology and firepower, an unseen assailant held millions hostage to fear.
Life was reduced to its most elemental level-survival. Day by day the toll mounted, until 10 had been killed, another three wounded. Each by a single bullet fired from a distance by a sharpshooter who immediately disappeared.
The whole area was paralyzed: kids were locked inside schools, outdoor events were canceled, mammoth traffic jams clogged the highways as law enforcement authorities cast out dragnets. During this same three-week period 15 or more people died in "ordinary" crimes that rated only a couple of lines in the Washington Post. As tragic as these deaths were, they had some sort of rational basis-robberies, domestic arguments, and so on.
But the sniper shot and killed in utter randomness. He gunned down without warning and without mercy people doing what we all do every day-mowing the lawn, sitting on a bench, filling the car's gas tank, going to school.
Ordinary people. Good people. One, a Seventh-day Adventist, Prem Kumar Walekar, loving husband and father of two, murdered while fueling his taxi.
Suddenly everyone was afraid. Afraid to go to the store. Afraid to go to school. Afraid to get gas.
Thank God, the terror is over. The suspects turned out to be quite unlike the profiles painted by "experts": an angry failure of a man who was a sharpshooter, and a fresh-faced youth who idolized him. It all seems so simple now. While police and public focused on white vans, the two vagrants drove around in their beat-up old blue Chevy, passing through roadblocks on their murderous rampage.
And here we are at the gate of another year. What can we expect?
The dogs of war are barking, straining at the leash. We long for peace and security, but they may be far away. "On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea," Jesus told us about the last days. "Men will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world" (Luke 21:25, 26).*
These times call us to earnest prayer, to seek the Lord as never before. To pray constantly, personally, privately. To unite with others in prayer.
The Bible is full of prayers, especially the psalms. Here are prayers from the Scriptures (some of them personalized) that may be just right for you:
The simplest and shortest: "Lord, save me!" (Ps. 3:7).
If you are struggling with doubt: "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief" (Mark 9:24).
Learning to pray: "Teach me to pray" (Luke 11:1).
Looking ahead: "Lord, teach me to number my days aright, that I may gain a heart of wisdom" (Ps. 90:12).
For a new start: "Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me" (Ps. 51:10).
For daily living: "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. . . . Lead me in the way everlasting" (Ps. 139:23, 24).
And for the blessed hope: "Amen. Come, Lord Jesus" (Rev. 22:20).
The times are strange, the future uncertain. But God is real, His Word sure.
"And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: 'Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.' And he replied: 'Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.'" †
* The New International Version is quoted or adapted throughout.
† Minnie Louise Haskins, "God Knows," Desert
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William G. Johnson is the editor of the Adventist Review.
