A Bonhoeffer Prayer

John 11:45-53 (NIV)
⁴⁵ Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, put their faith in him.
⁴⁶ But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.
⁴⁷ Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. "What are we accomplishing?" they asked. "Here is this man performing many miraculous signs.
⁴⁸ If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation."
⁴⁹ Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, "You know nothing at all!
⁵⁰ You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish."
⁵¹ He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation,
⁵² and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one.
⁵³ So from that day on they plotted to take his life.

Among the heroes of our faith is Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  A German pastor, theologian, brilliant and passionate, a man who vehemently opposed Hitler's attempt to control the church and make Nazi ideology a part of the church's values, a man who sought to get Jewish people out of Germany when it became obvious what the Nazi's what the attempting to do in exterminating the Jewish people...and on and on I could go.

Bonhoeffer was arrested by the Nazi Gestapo after his name was linked to people involved in a failed plot to assassinate Hitler.  He spent several years in prison camps until one week before the end of the Allied liberation when he was executed as an enemy of the state.

The second century theologian Tertullian said, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church".
The Church has always survived the Satanic driven attempts to destroy it.  It started back in Jesus' earthly ministry.  The Pharisees were driven by their own selfish desire to retain control, to rule in power over people - even when it involved faith.
The nature of earthly power is that, unredeemed, it is always most interested in control "over", not serving under...not love...not caring.  This is the nature of a world under the control of the enemy.  It was manifested in Caiaphas, a high Priest; and down through the centuries by rulers such as Adolph Hitler.

We are called to stand true to faith.  We do not need power from an earthly source to do that.   We need the redemptive power of Christ's love, and that same love as a driving force in our own souls.
But, we cannot do that alone.  Listen to the words of Bonhoeffer he penned while in Prison.

I CANNOT DO THIS ALONE
O God, early in the morning I cry to you.
Help me to pray
And to concentrate my thoughts on you;
I cannot do this alone.

In me there is darkness,
But with you there is light;
I am lonely,
but you do not leave me;
I am feeble in heart,
but with you there is help;
I am restless,
but with you there is peace.
In me there is bitterness,
but with you there is patience;
I do not understand your ways,
But you know the way for me. . . .

Restore me to liberty,
And enable me to live now
That I may answer before you and before men.
Lord, whatever this day may bring,
Your name be praised.

Peace