I'm a sophomore in college at Asbury University. Now for those who do not know anything about Asbury and the town it is located, let me tell you a little bit about it. Wilmore is a quiet little town in central Kentucky. The best way I describe it to my friends and family back home is this.
"You ever seen Andy Griffith? Well Wilmore is Kentucky's version of Mayberry."
And for the most part that is true. Wilmore is this small little town of a little under 4,000 people and has been often nominated as one of the safest places to live in Kentucky. Last year as a freshman I heard little to no police sirens and never heard of any crimes happening around me. But this year has been entirely different. Over the past month or so every day (that is not an exaggeration, seriously, every single day) I have been hearing sirens after sirens and seeing police cars race down the streets. Even as I am typing out this sentence I can hear sirens from police cars now. As I'm writing this sentence now those sirens have gotten louder and I saw a police car and a SWAT van drive by!
Now I'm not saying Wilmore is becoming more and more dangerous or anything like that. Because it is not just Wilmore. Everywhere I go, whether that be back home in Ohio or here in Kentucky, I am seeing police cars with their lights on zooming past me, police cars outside a person's house or a business, and fire trucks and ambulances racing towards their destination. I mean this has legitimately happened every time I get in into my car and drive somewhere. I thank God that we have police officers and paramedics and firefighters who are around and who take care of us. But my heart breaks for this world where I can't drive to Walmart without hearing sirens.
My point in saying all this is this. Hearing all these sirens, knowing that something bad has happened somewhere, knowing that people's lives may never be the same because of whatever has happened, has made me recognize that this world needs prayer. We live in a world where we have forgotten our Heavenly Father and forgotten to pray for one another. Every time I hear sirens and see a police car, I am prompted by the Holy Spirit to pray. I pray for the policeman responding, and I pray for the person or people who the police are responding to. I was awoken around 2:00 am one night this week by the sound of sirens and immediately began to pray for whatever had happened. I prayed that God would be with all the people involved with whatever was happening. This is what I have now begun to do more frequently and what I hope many of you will do now too.
Our world is broken and sinful, and God has called us to be a light into it. And what better way to be a light to this world than to pray for it? Christians need to come together and begin praying for this world. Begin praying for the families of the broken. When I hear sirens, I immediately think that a family is never going to be the same. Maybe their house has burned, maybe there has been a murder, or a robbery. Whatever it may be when I hear sirens, I know someone's life is not going to be the same again. And we need to pray for these people.
This is a call to action. We need to start taking Jesus seriously when He said we should "pray without ceasing." We need to pray for those who have been attacked by the sinfulness of this world.
We need to pray.
