Peace in Congo, Afghanistan, Sudan

Peace. Is it a distant concept?

Well, maybe. I know our lives are busy, but for the last several years a civil war has been raging in the central African country of Congo. In this civil war, most of the victims are women and children. What should your response be? Should it be indifference or should you bless everyone involved in the conflict? Jesus Christ believed that you should bless our enemies. That's the way he lived and his life and theology changed the world. If you follow Jesus, then Congo, or Sudan or Afghanistan is a great opportunity to bless everyone involved in wars in these countries. What I didn't realize until recently is how much the soldiers perpetrating violence need blessing. We don't bless them in their violence of course. We bless them in their desire to do right, their humanitarianism, their care for the weak. We bless them in their soberness.

The first time I started praying for Congo, I listened to God for ideas. And God answered right away and said to pray about drunkenness, including being drunk with power and the love of violence.

Blessing everyone involved in a conflict is powerful. How can I say that? Because in life we are dealing with ideas. In war, the idea is there are tribal differences, there are many minds at war with each other, there are limited resources, there's bad blood, bad history, enraged thinking. That's where God and Christ come in. Jesus proved the power of loving your enemies by blessing and loving even on the cross. This Love overcame death. God is divine Love, which is infinite Love. Infinite means "fills all space."

You end war by not ignoring it. You end war, not by taking sides, but by living, praying and knowing that God, infinite Love is everywhere and all powerful. You end war by blessing everyone including the soldiers. When you do that, you are practicing the First Commandment (Exodus 20:3) that there are no other gods (powers or authority) besides Love.

I bless you all as children of the one God, divine Love. I bless all those trapped by war and all those waging war as children of God.

Mary Baker Eddy, an American woman who discovered the laws of God, which she named Christian Science, said this:

"One infinite God, good, unifies men and nations; constitutes the brotherhood of man; ends wars; fulfils the Scripture, "Love thy neighbor as thyself;" annihilates pagan and Christian idolatry, — whatever is wrong in social, civil, criminal, political, and religious codes; equalizes the sexes; annuls the curse on man, and leaves nothing that can sin, suffer, be punished or destroyed."