Thoughts and Prayers

 Whenever a terrible thing happens, people are heard offering up thoughts and prayers for those involved. I believe that is the right thing to do at all times and in all places either silently or aloud. 

Not everyone believes in the power of prayer, or in the power of God. Some even think that mankind can fix a problem better than the use of prayer. 

They say, "Prayer is not enough." 

I say, "Since when?"   

Recall President Obama, 

After eight college students and a professor were killed at Umpqua Community College near Roseburg, Ore., in October 2015, Obama condemned the phrase.

“Our thoughts and prayers are not enough. It’s not enough,” Obama said at a new conference. “It does not capture the heartache and grief and anger that we should feel, and it does nothing to prevent this carnage from being inflicted someplace else in America, next week or a couple months from now.”

The speech was followed by a tweet sent from Obama’s account: “Our thoughts and prayers are not enough — it’s time to take action.” (source: Investigative Reporting Workshop)

Of prayers and thoughts, the greatest of these are prayers. 

The worst offense a politician or a government can do is to assume that they are more powerful than God, and that they can see and should control your thoughts.  

In the U.K. the government (through society) is trying to shut down "thoughts and prayers" near abortion clinics. One woman has been arrested twice for silently standing and praying near one of these centers. 

From CBN News, 

The nonprofit law firm Alliance Defending Freedom UK (ADF UK) reports their client, Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, has been arrested for the second time for the "offense" of silently praying in her head within an abortion facility censorship zone or "buffer zone".

Her arrest comes just weeks after being acquitted by a UK court for the same violation...

Her exchange with two police officers was captured in a video clip that was released on social media by ADF UK. 

In the 46-second video, Vaughan-Spruce is shown standing still with her back to a hedge and her hands placed in her coat pockets. 

Then several police officers approach her. One officer asks her, "Can I please ask you to step away from here and step outside the exclusion zone?"

Vaughan-Spruce replied, "But I'm not protesting. I'm not engaging in any of the activities prohibited."

"But you said you were engaging in prayer which is the offense," the officer responded. 

"Silent prayer," Vaughan-Spruce counters. 

"No, but you were still engaging in prayer. It is an offense," the officer explained. 

 I understand that our thoughts condemn us before the Lord, but before the police? Holy 1984!

"The thought police would get him just the same. He had committed – would have committed, even if he had never set pen to paper – the essential crime that contained all others in itself. Thoughtcrime, they called it. Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you."

– George Orwell, 1984. Part 1, Chapter 1.

 My thoughts and prayers go out for the hyphenated lady, Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, to be acquitted once again.