DAY 35

I’m writing to you from an airplane flying at 36,000 feet on my way to Fargo, North Dakota, to join their local 40 Days for Life campaign before heading on to California tomorrow and Washington state Thursday.

As I was going through my e-mails in the airport right before boarding the plane, I got this exciting report from a 40 Days for Life location:

“An employee of the Planned Parenthood facility [we've] been praying in front of has quit her job! She came out of the building and told the pray-ers that she couldn’t work there anymore!!”

Praise the Lord! Pray that God leads this lady into new work that helps, rather than hurts, people.

Further down in my list of e-mail messages, I came across this note from another part of the country:

“I thought it might be a nice end also if everyone sends out today (so it will arrive by Saturday) a polite card to the abortion clinic workers telling them there is healing in Jesus and forgiveness, telling them that it’s not too late to walk out of the abortion business and go to work helping women and babies, and also inviting them to our church.”

How thoughtful!

After enduring 35 days of intense prayer, fasting, and vigil directed at their abortion facility, many clinic workers are growing weary, and their conscience is weighing on them.

It may just take a gentle nudge to encourage them to walk away and make a dramatic life change!

Keep in mind that, just like you and me — and just like each child in the womb — these abortion workers are made in the image and likeness of God, and are in need of love.

On Saturday, as you — and tens of thousands of others across America — join together for the concluding “Unity Vigil” that will be held outside of every Planned Parenthood center and abortion facility possible, let’s make sure that the workers in these facilities realize that hope and healing is available to them.

Here’s your devotional for today by Fr. Frank Pavone…

INTENTION:

Pray that we choose to trust God to bring an end to abortion soon, no matter how impossible that may seem to others.

SCRIPTURE:

The hand of the LORD was upon me, and He brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” I said, “O Sovereign LORD, you alone know.”

Then He said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD’” — Ezekiel 37:1-6

REFLECTION:

Imagine the dilemma Ezekiel was in when God asked him if the bones could live. He must have thought to himself: “If I say yes that’s going to appear foolish; but if I say no, I risk distrusting God.”

So what did Ezekiel say? “I don’t know.” And so God said to him: “Speak, prophesy, speak the word of truth to the bones.”

Now he knew he was in a dilemma, because to speak to dry bones humanly appears foolish, but now, if he didn’t do it, he would be disobeying God. It was the choice between the foolish thing and the dangerous thing.

So he spoke, and what an awesome moment it must have been, because Scripture tells us that he heard a rattling sound and then he saw one bone begin to join to another.

And God, as if cheering him on, said: “Keep speaking, speak again. Prophesy to the bones!” And the bones stood up, flesh came on them, and the spirit of life was breathed into the bones. And there you have a vast army living because of the word of truth.

You and I are standing in a world today over a field of dry bones: those who have been killed by abortion, those who have been killed by so many other things attacking the dignity of human life. It is a valley of dry bones, because of the deaths and also because of the dead consciences.

And God has placed us here; we find ourselves here in the midst of this incredible tragedy. Like Ezekiel, you and I are in a dilemma because God says to us: “Speak and proclaim the Word of Life. Keep doing it. Let nothing deter you.”

And so people can say, “This is humanly foolish, humanly impossible. How can we transform the world from the path of death that it’s on?”

Yet we choose to do the “foolish” thing rather than the dangerous thing. Speak, and speak like Ezekiel, for as long as you live!

And if you ever doubt that we can bring an end to this culture of death, this destruction of the family, this destruction of life by abortion, if you ever think for a moment that it’s impossible, then ask yourself this: Can a field of dry bones ever live?

Or better yet ask yourself this: Can a man who has been scourged, crowned with thorns, nailed hands and feet to a cross, pierced with a lance, has died and been buried… Can such a man ever live again?

PRAYER:

Lord, I thank you today for your command to speak the word of life, to build the culture of life. I thank you for giving me the holy dilemma of having to choose between the foolish thing or the dangerous thing. Yet for me the solution to that dilemma is clear.

Lord, I will obey you, even if it means aiming for a goal which, in the eyes of others, seems foolish. I will obey you, and will hope for the end of abortion soon, no matter how impossible that may seem to others. I dare not mistrust you; I dare not doubt your power; I dare not fail to follow your call. In you, who raise the dead, all hope comes alive.

I pray in the name of Jesus Christ the Lord, AMEN.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 30th, 2007 at 1:14 pm and is filed under 40 Days for Life, Devotionals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.