Will you join the army?

I began writing a blog this morning about how leaders need to be transparent but had to stop and help my daughter with her research paper she is doing. Before returning to my finish writing my blog I was interrupted with news about our friends in South Sudan.(here is the article http://tinyurl.com/kump3qm ). God often wants to interrupt our lives but do we let Him? I can think of nothing else but our friends and the children that they have in their care. As I try to write, I am brought back to thoughts of them and cant write my original blog. I try to catch up on other news, and find that it is all so trivial in the context of life. Here is a family that have given up their lives to serve our Heavenly Father. To hear of a 16 year old and 23 year old who is willing to stay in the line of fire to bring the love of Jesus to a nation and yet we sit in our warm homes, with full bellies, and complain about what we don't have. Since I first heard about the turmoil in South Sudan I have tried everyday to find current news about the conflict so I could pray specifically for my friends, yet in American media there is very little talk of it. Check out MSN or CNN and it will take you a while to find an article about the fighting in South Sudan but only seconds to hear the latest on Duck Dynasty. Seriously? Has America really become that shallow and self-centered. I can confess that I don't like watching the news anymore, its depressing, but with everything happening in South Sudan and the fact that this hits close to home I have realized how important it is for the body of Christ to be aware of what is happening in our world. We are warriors. God equipped us and armed us with weapons not of this world (2 Cor. 10:4) to help and battle for those who cannot battle for themselves. We are commanded to take care of the widows and the orphans (James 1:27), and that is what my friends in South Sudan are doing. They are on the front lines, but that does not excuse us from the battle. It is time for the church in America to wake up and quit worrying about Duck Dynasty or Miley Cyrus but open their eyes to the broken and hurting world wide. There is a song by Casting Crown with these lyrics -

 "What if the armies of the Lord

 picked up and dusted of their swords

vowed to set the captives free

and not let Satan have one more"

The Bible says in 2 Chronicles 7:14 "if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land."

The church in America needs to humble itself, ask for forgiveness of our selfish ways, throw off the gluttony, the covetousness, the division, and the judgmental attitudes; turn from the distractions and turn toward God.

Our pastor preached a little on this yesterday at http://lifechangeomaha.com/. The world is in turmoil; America is in turmoil, yet we as the church want to remain blind. God desires to heal the nations but it will take an "army of the Lord" to "humble themselves and pray and seek His face" for that to happen. Will you join that army? Are you willing to give whatever it takes to see His will done here on earth as it is in Heaven?