When we hear about another random act of violence, our first response is usually to pray away the pain or pray that this will never happen again.

But how can we pray beyond the fear and shock, beyond the most obvious needs, for the issues of the kingdom? Below are prayer points that were originally written by Pray! staff, the morning after the September 15, 1999 church shooting at Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.

Once again, as a nation, from a human perspective we are unable to make sense of the horrific situation we are in. We hope that they will act as a springboard for your own prayer in the wake of tragedies that defy human understanding and are becoming more frequent.

Praise

Though it is difficult, start with praise. Focus on God's character.

• Praise God that He is sovereign, that He has ultimate control over all, and that nothing takes Him by surprise (Is. 45:5-7).

Petition/Intercession

• Ask God to use this situation to bring unprecedented spiritual openness to people affected by the tragedy, and ask Him to show His face to them.

• Ask God to bless the ministry that will be thrust upon the church or community affected by the tragedy. Ask Him to empower them with a powerful witness when they are called upon to speak about or reflect on the situation.

• Ask God to stand against the enemy's attempts to make families experience unresolved anger or guilt over the loss of loved ones.

• Ask God to focus the minds of public officials on the need for prayer and to provide people who will continue to pray for the situation.

• Ask God to equip leaders who will be called upon to mentor and minister to people in the aftermath of tragedy (Heb. 13:20-21).

• Ask God -- for yourself and others -- for a passion and love for Christ that drive out fear (1 Jn. 4:18).

Thanksgiving

• Thank God that the enemy has made a tactical error, since martyrdom and persecution have always strengthened the church, and that God will use for good what Satan has intended for harm (Gen. 50:20-21).

• Thank God for the people who will be drawn to seek God's face because the overwhelming nature of the tragedy leaves them nowhere else to turn (Jon. 2:1-9).

• Thank God for a vivid reminder of your own mortality and vulnerability, asking Him to prepare your heart and spirit for a faithful response when you are faced with
  tragedy.

Sandra Higley, Lani Hinkle. Pray Nov/Dec 1999.

Compassion and Revenge

The terror in New York and Washington forces you to choose your reaction consciously or unconsciously. The violence that we saw today was the consequence of unconscious choices -- choices driven by pain, fear, and desperation.

Who among us has not experienced pain, fear and desperation? Who among us will not experience them in the future? The question of whether they will determine your responses to the circumstances of your life, no matter how painful, is critical, because your future depends upon it.

The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon are occasions of great significance. They are opportunities for you to feel inside, to find those parts of yourself that are in fear, and to make the decision to move forward in your life without fear.

That is the challenge for each individual on this planet today. The pursuit of external power - the ability to manipulate and control - creates only violence and destruction. The painful events in New York and Washington are living examples of that reality.

The causal chain that created this violence is one in which compassion and wisdom are absent. Are wisdom and compassion present in you as you watch the television, and read the papers? It is important to realize that you do not know all that came to conclusion, or into karmic balance, as a result of these events. Because you are not able to know all that can be known about them, you are not in a position to judge them.

When you are able to look at the events of the Earth School from this perspective, you will see clearly the central importance of the role that you play in it. That role is this: It is for you to decide what you will contribute to this world. Many will be asking your opinion of these events. Each question is an opportunity for you to contribute to the love that is in the world or to the fear that is in the world. This is the same opportunity that presents itself to you at each moment.

If you hate those who hate, you become like them. You add to the violence and the destructive energy that now fills our world. As you make the decision to see with clarity and compassion, you will see that those who committed these acts of violence were in extreme pain themselves, and that they were fueled by the violent parts of ourselves - the parts that judge without mercy, strike in anger, and rejoice in the suffering of others.

They were our proxy representatives. If you can look with compassion upon those who have suffered and those who have committed acts of cruelty alike, then you will see that all are suffering. The remedy for suffering is not to inflict more suffering.

This is an opportunity for a massive expression of compassion. It is also an opportunity for a massive expression of revenge. Which world do you intend to live in -- a world of revenge or a world of compassion?"

Submitted by reader Gary Zukav

A few additional resources include the following:

Coping with Emotions after a Disaster
http://www.psychworks.com/PTSD%20response.htm

Managing Traumatic Stress, American Psychological Association
http://www.apa.org

After a Disaster: Steps You Can Take to Cope with a Stressful Situation
http://www.wright.edu/sopp/cps/TraumaticStress.html & nbsp

The Child Survivor of Traumatic Stress
http://users.umassmed.edu/Kenneth.Fletcher/kidsurv.html

Helping Children After a Disaster: Facts for Families from the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
http://www.aacap.org/

National Center for PTSD has a large literature base:
http://www.ncptsd.org/

If you have something particularly useful that we can circulate by e-mail to those on our various listservs, please get it to us quickly.

The Deeper Wound

As fate would have it, I was leaving New York on a jet flight that took off 45 minutes before the unthinkable happened. By the time we landed in Detroit, chaos had broken out. When I grasped the fact that American security had broken down so tragically, I couldn't respond at first. My wife and son were also in the air on separate flights, one to Los Angeles, one to San Diego.

My body went absolutely rigid with fear. All I could think about was their safety, and it took several hours before I found out that their flights had been diverted and both were safe.

Strangely, when the good news came, my body still felt that it had been hit by a truck. Of its own accord it seemed to feel a far greater trauma that reached out to the thousands who would not survive and the tens of thousands who would survive only to live through months and years of hell. And I asked myself, Why didn't I feel this way last week? Why didn't my body go stiff during the bombing of Iraq or Bosnia?

Around the world my horror and worry are experienced every day. Mothers weep over horrendous loss, civilians are bombed mercilessly, refugees are ripped from any sense of home or homeland. Why did I not feel their anguish enough to call a halt to it?

As we hear the calls for tightened American security and a fierce military response to terrorism, it is obvious that none of us has any answers. However, we feel compelled to ask some questions. Everything has a cause, so we have to ask, What was the root cause of this evil?

We must find out not superficially but at the deepest level. There is no doubt that such evil is alive all around the world and is even celebrated. Does this evil grow from the suffering and anguish felt by people we don't know and therefore ignore? Have they lived in this condition for a long time? One assumes that whoever did this attack feels implacable hatred for America. Why were we selected to be the focus of suffering around the world?

All this hatred and anguish seems to have religion at its basis. Isn't something terribly wrong when jihads and wars develop in the name of God? Isn't God invoked with hatred in Ireland, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Israel, Palestine, and even among the intolerant sects of America? Can any military response make the slightest difference in the underlying cause?

Is there not a deep wound at the heart of humanity? If there is a deep wound, doesn't it affect everyone? When generations of suffering respond with bombs, suicidal attacks, and biological warfare, who first developed these weapons? Who sells them? Who gave birth to the satanic technologies now being turned against us? If all of us are wounded, will revenge work?

Will punishment in any form toward anyone solve the wound or aggravate it? Will an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and limb for a limb, leave us all blind, toothless and crippled?

Tribal warfare has been going on for two thousand years and has now been magnified globally. Can tribal warfare be brought to an end? Is patriotism and nationalism even relevant anymore, or is this another form of tribalism?

What are you and I as persons going to do about what is happening? Can we afford to let the deeper wound fester any longer? Everyone is calling this an attack on America, but is it not a rift in our collective soul? Isn't this an attack on civilization from without that is also from within?

When we have secured our safety once more and cared for the wounded, after the period of shock and mourning is over, it will be time for soul searching. I only hope that these questions are confronted with the deepest spiritual intent. None of us will feel safe again behind the shield of military might and stockpiled arsenals.

There can be no safety until the root cause is faced. In this moment of shock I don't think anyone of us has the answers. It is imperative that we pray and offer solace and help to each other. But if you and I are having a single thought of violence or hatred against anyone in the world at this moment, we are contributing to the wounding of the world.

Love, Deepak

Additional Prayers

Job 30:26-27

Yet when I hoped for good, evil came; when I looked for light, then came darkness. The churning inside me never stops; days of suffering confront me. (NIV)

Lord, give us faith in light of such tragedy and horror in our midst.

Help us to remember this perspective from Philip Yancey's Disappointment with God... "the outer circumstances... will seem the real struggle...

But the more important battle, as shown in Job, takes place inside us. Will we trust God? Job teaches us that at the moment when faith is hardest and least likely, then faith is most needed.

His struggle presents a glimpse of what the Bible elsewhere spells out in detail: the remarkable truth that our choices matter, not just to us and our own destiny, but, amazingly, to God Himself and the universe He rules...

In short, God has granted to ordinary men and women the dignity of participating in the Great Reversal which will restore the cosmos to its pristine state... In the prologue, the scene of The Wager establishes a darkly shining truth: Job -- and you and I -- can join the struggle to reverse all that is wrong with the universe. We can make a difference."

"Why does God let evil and pain so flagrantly exist, even thrive, on this planet? Why does He let us do slowly and blunderingly what He could do in an eyeblink?...He holds back for our sakes. Re-creation involves us; we are, in fact, at the center of His plan.

The Wager, the motive behind all human history, is to develop us, not God. Our very existence announces to the powers in the universe that restoration is under way. Every act of faith by every one of the people of God is like the tolling of a bell, and a faith like Job's reverberates throughout the universe." (pp. 172-174)

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