Prayer Summary for May 8

Prayed…

Holy Spirit, we welcome You today as our authority!
We see ourselves covered in the blood today!
Thank You for Your peace that passes all understanding!

Shared…

The following article was taken from the Saint Paul Pioneer Press:

Melissa Coleman: Redefining Marriage Is Extreme; Minnesota Legislature
Should Seek To Solve Specific Problems First

We can do better than this. Minnesota needs us to do better than this.

People’s approaches to conflict resolution range from fighting with guns and weapons to litigation—a more civilized but still extremely adversarial process, all the way to collaborative approaches like mediation. Minnesota lawmakers require all parties to a lawsuit to attempt to resolve their conflicts through alternative dispute resolution before being allowed to duke it out in a courtroom. The Legislature needs to take its own advice before they go to the extreme measure of redefining marriage for all Minnesotans tomorrow.

The great intensity of the conviction and emotion on both sides of the marriage debate is a stage set for war, figuratively speaking. The riots in France two weeks ago when gay marriage was legalized should be a warning to us that neither side intends to back down. While Minnesotans may not be given to physical warfare, we saw “Minnesota nice” turn ugly last fall when neighbors angrily destroyed each other’s election signs. Yet our Legislature is bent on pushing our great state into intense adversity and unnecessary conflict before making a genuine attempt to solve these problems collaboratively.

Specific legal problems need specific legal fixes. If committed same-sex couples want inheritance rights, we should be smart enough people to figure out how to give that to them. If they need the right to consent to emergency or other medical treatment for their partner, we can solve that one too.

But to overhaul our millennia-old institution of marriage with deep roots in religious doctrine to fix these specific legal problems is as overkill as calling in the National Guard to get a kitten out of a tree.

Same-sex couples could get their marriage licenses, but at what cost? People of faith will be put in the cruel position of having to choose between their deeply held religious convictions or bearing the brunt of the full weight of the law against them. Family law will be turned upside down, the diversity of mother and father in parenting will be undermined, and children may have to be shared among the three or four parents on their birth certificates in the event of a divorce. And if homosexual unions are equal to heterosexual unions, gay and lesbian forms of sex will get equal air time in our school’s sex education curriculum. These effects of redefining marriage will open the floodgates of litigation and turn Minnesota communities and schools into battlegrounds.

The Legislature isn’t talking about these effects because they are too preoccupied with strategizing for battle, without fully considering the common good or weighing the consequences of the war.

When children are emotionally charged and gearing up for a fight, we tell them to take a time out and think about it. The Minnesota Legislature needs a “time out” to think through the best way to solve the legitimate, specific legal concerns raised by our community’s same-sex couples. Why drag our state into war when we can work the solution out peaceably?

Minnesota has an opportunity to set the example for the rest of our nation. We can show how the DFL and GOP can work collaboratively to confer benefits to same-sex couples in a way that doesn’t tear our culture apart, and pit neighbor against neighbor. Our State Capitol building displays references to Minnesota as “The Star of the North.” Will our governor and lawmakers have the courage to put down their weapons of war and come to the table with some of Minnesota’s best legal minds to resolve these problems peaceably, and in a way that serves the common good of all? Minnesota has an opportunity to let her light shine to the nation. Will we rise to this challenge, or join the war?

Judges have the power to order parties into a conference room to work out their conflict. If you agree that Gov. Dayton should order the GOP and DFL back to the table to fix these problems peaceably…

Melissa Coleman is a Twin Cities attorney.

Minnesota has an opportunity to set the example for the rest of our nation. We can show how the DFL and GOP can work collaboratively to confer benefits to same-sex couples in a way that doesn’t tear our culture apart, and pit neighbor against neighbor.

To view this article online, please click here.

Scripture Focus…

“Is not My word like a fire?” says the Lord, “And like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?”
(Jer. 23:29 NKJV)

Continued Praying…

Father, there are things that the Church has not done correctly
We repent for not taking our place and acting on Your behalf
Father, we ask for mercy, grace, and help in this time of need
All over this state and this nation, there are those who know You and hold fast to You
We join our shields together and pray for those in authority
Give them wisdom from heaven to see, know, and move
Calling for more motion and movement in this nation!
Through the blood we forbid you, Devil, to destroy the sanctity of marriage
We loose angles and ministering spirits to go and work on our behalf
Supernatural aid and assistance to turn the hearts of the kings and leaders
Heart adjustments right now in Jesus’ name!
Decisions to be made in the right way
We pray for strength!
Pleading the blood over minds and hearts
The blood exposing wrong thinking
Things to be revealed and uncovered!
Your Word shall go forth and penetrate the hard hearts
We hold back fear!
Collaboration with the Spirit
Continually moving and praying in that way
Things that have been missed shall be brought to light
Lies being revealed in Jesus’ name!
Declaring a turn in the right way and plan
Speaking forth a shaping up!
The blood dispels and puts a stop to the plans of the enemy!
We pray over the wavering ones!
Seeing a softening of hearts!
Father, we lift up every member of the Senate in Minnesota
We know the right and God-ordained way
Lord, we thank You for Your blood!
Father, thank You for letting us be a part of Your plan!
You get all the glory and honor for all of the good things that will take place today!

Comments are closed.

Post Navigation