Cry Out

This past week I saw a news bulletin on the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has been in a civil war since 1998, costing the lives of over five million people. Today one of the youngest presidents in Africa, Joseph Kabila, is trying to restore peace to the devastated country torn by the strife over its vast natural resources.

The segment I saw covered an amazing event that recently happened in the Congo. The normally quiet president’s wife, Marie Kabila, came out and called the nation to three days of prayer and fasting. She herself came out to the national stadium in Kinshasa, crammed with thousands of people, humbled herself, and cried out to God in repentance and for God’s intervention in her nation. I sat in my living room and wept as I saw thousands upon thousands of Africans throughout the land crying out to God.

In Exodus 2:7, God speaks to Moses concerning the children of Israel, "I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey.”

Even though the cry going up in the Congo may be more visible, I believe there is a cry going up from oppressed people groups throughout the world today. This cry is rising up from Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, and animistic countries. It is rising up from people groups under oppressive governments, where their voices are silenced for the world to hear but not silenced before the creator of the universe who sees and hears all things.

Paul says in Romans 8:22-23, “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” I believe it is time for the church to join with the myriad of lost souls to cry out for God to bring deliverance. It is not the voice of politicians or media that is going to being deliverance. It is the cry and groans of those who have the firstfruits of Spirit who are going to bring His deliverance.

Lift up your voice today and cry out for an oppressed people group whom you know, or with whom you live or work.

Andy Clark