“We are a discipleship-centered, family-rooted, and missional church, passionate about seeing lives transformed by the power of the gospel,” says Yara, the partnerships team leader at Resurrection Church.

(Photo courtesy of Resurrection Church in Lebanon)

It’s been a year of continued regional conflict and uncertainty for Lebanon. But Yara says the difficulties will never change Resurrection Church’s sense of God’s purpose for them.

“We believe that the Church exists to be present where there is pain, to care for those who are hurting, marginalized, weak, poor, without discrimination and always with the heart of pointing people to Jesus,” she says. 

“Due to the ongoing crises, the walls people had built started to shatter. They’re more open to share their hearts, their pain. They’re asking questions [that] are deep about the gospel, about life in general, searching for peace and hope.” 

That’s why bringing joy to people this time of year, as well as introducing them to Christ, was a top priority for Resurrection Church’s plans. Instead of merely hosting events, they invited people on a journey with three stops along the way. 

“It starts with a Christmas theatrical play for all age groups, where many people encounter the story of Jesus for the very first time,” says Yara.

Christmas village 2025 (Photo courtesy of Resurrection Church in Lebanon)

“From there, we carry new people and families into our Christmas Village, which we all know is a space for joy, community, connecting with these people, making families and children feel welcomed and seen.”

The final step is the church’s Christmas service, where people will be welcomed in and invited to take the next step with God.

“The vision is very simple behind this, but also intentional,” says Yara. “It is to gently carry these people from their first encounter with the Christmas story and the gospel into His church as a final stop.”

Please join in prayer for spiritual breakthroughs in people’s lives this week.

December 2025 Christmas village (Photo courtesy of Resurrection Church in Lebanon)

“Pray that the hearts would stay open in every step of the way, every step of the journey, that God would draw people forward along this journey and transform lives through it,” says Yara.

Lebanon is one of, if not the most, open countries in the Middle East for sharing the hope of Christ, says Yara. Because of that, Resurrection Church often has believers arriving at their doors, having fled from persecution in different Arab countries.

“We truly believe that God has positioned Lebanon for such a time as this — not just as a refuge, but as a place where disciples are formed and we are able to lead people to the light of Christ,” says Yara.

Header photo courtesy of Resurrection Church in Beirut, Lebanon. 

“Hope When Your Heart Is Breaking” is his honest, broken, and faith-filled look at the difference Jesus makes when your world is falling apart.

Below, we’re sharing part of the interview with Hutchcraft discussing his book in a Q&A format. Listen to the full interview here.

(Image courtesy of Ron Hutchcraft Ministries)

Koh: Ron, you recently wrote a book, “Hope When Your Heart is Breaking”. It just recently came out, and it’s your story of grief and also your story of hope. For me, personally, aside from wanting to talk to you as a ministry partner, I wanted to read your book because I’ve suffered grief recently in the loss of my baby Gideon last year. And you suffered grief in the loss of your wife, Karen, [four] years ago. So thank you for being willing to talk about this book today, Ron. I’m sure it’s going to be a significant encouragement for anybody else listening who’s going through something like this.

Hutchcraft: Well, that is my hope and that is my prayer. Thank you for wanting to do this. And I think the personal-ness of this will be just right for somebody who’s listening.

Koh: Absolutely. So my first question, Ron,…what inspired you to write this book? And who inspired you to write this book?

Hutchcraft: Well, it’s a book I never would have thought I would write. It started, you might say, on the best day of my wife’s life and the worst day of mine. Because that was the day she got to see Jesus and she got to see Heaven. And it’s the same day that I was left here without the person I had loved since I was 19.

Let me take you back to May 15th, 2016. It was a great day. Our oldest grandchild was graduating from high school valedictorian. He gave a wonderful, Christ-honoring talk in a stadium full of people. Now I had to leave right after that and be driven to another state to speak the next day.

So we’re sitting in the bleachers and I said, “Honey, I love you.” And she said, “Well, I love you.” And then, uncharacteristically, she had tears in her eyes. I thought that’s not usual and I said, “Honey, what’s going on?” She said, “Well, I’m really gonna miss you.” And I said, “Well, you know what? It won’t be long.”

I was wrong. I was really wrong.

The next afternoon, while I was in another state getting ready to speak, my son called and told me that Karen was in Heaven. And suddenly, in the room that I’m doing this interview in right now, the Lord took her home.

Ron Hutchcraft (Photo courtesy of Ron Hutchcraft Ministries)

I got back as fast as I could. And I felt like a lost little boy. I mean, you had to know what a life force Karen was. She was my mirror. She was my compass who let me know when I was drifting. She was my encourager. She was my very best friend, my wisest counselor, and had the greatest laugh you’ve ever heard — picked up on seismographs I think! And in an instant, she was gone.

How could I have known I was saying “I love you” for the last time? You never know when you’re saying “I love you” for the last time.

So that started me on a journey that I had traveled with others. But this was the other half of me, the only person I’d ever shared my whole adult life with, who knew all the same people. We had prayed, laughed, cried over the same things, been through the same battles. Suddenly gone. Irreplaceable. I knew how to do life with Karen. I had no idea how to do life without her.

A couple days later, I started a grief journal. I don’t even know, that idea must have come from God. I wasn’t coherent enough to think that straight. And I started to pour my heart into that journal. I mean, it’s Ron in the raw. All the pain, all the grief, all that I had lost was coming out.

You wouldn’t have to go very many pages in and you’d see this page that had big bold letters at the top. I wrote these words: “I will not waste this grief.”… And I then prayed, “God, if it’s going to hurt this bad, please, somehow, use it to make me more useful to You and more helpful to other people.”

All I can tell you is the past four years have been Him powerfully answering that prayer in so many ways. And I will tell you just upfront that as deep and dark as the grief was, there was something on the other side of the scale. Because if you look at it as a scale, the grief is just totally all on one side. There’s nothing on the other side.

But when there is Jesus, hope has a name. It’s not an idea. Not a concept. Not positive vibrations. Hope has a name. And His name is Jesus.

(Image courtesy of Ron Hutchcraft Ministries)

If you’ve got hope on the other side, then you’re experiencing what the Bible says when Paul wrote to people who had lost loved ones. He said, “We do not grieve…” and if it stopped there, I’d shut my Bible and probably never open it again. That’s a lie. But it says, “We do not grieve as others who have no hope.”

That hope factor [was] embodied in the man who walked out of His grave under His own power. Out of billions of people on this planet who’ve ever been here, only one ever walked out of His grave under His own power and conquered death. It’s what the Bible calls our living hope. And all I could tell you is that anchor holds.

Does it erase the grief? As you know, no, it doesn’t. But that hope balances, outweighs, and in a sense, envelops the grief to make the unbearable bearable, the undoable doable one day at a time.

Koh: So in your book, one thing that really struck me — it’s kind of a thread that runs through the whole thing — is a phrase…. Defiant hope. Could you describe what defiant hope is? Why is that so important in this journey of grief?

Hutchcraft: Well, it’s a strange combination of words, isn’t it? I had never put them together before. I have a mental picture of it.

Back on September 11th, [2001] at about five o’clock that afternoon when it was clear that there weren’t going to be very many survivors, another building across the street was about to cave in. USA Today, I think, called it the darkest hour on the darkest day. It was at that point we’ll all remember it because the picture is iconic. Three firefighters got an American flag off a boat in the East River and raised that flag over the rubble.

That flag over the rubble said, “We’ve had great loss. There’s a lot of dark, dark feelings right now. But this flag signifies that this will not be the end of this story.”

(Image courtesy of Ron Hutchcraft Ministries)

So defiant hope is a choice. As you know from the book, I believe it is not ultimately the loss that determines whether we have more grief, sadness, and hurt — or whether we have hope and healing. It is the choices we make….

I call it a fist in the face of surrender that says I am not going to deny this grief [and] I’m not going to be defined by this grief.

That’s the second choice. So I’m not going to deny it. But I will not revolve my life around this loss. As much as it’s a magnet pulling me down, I’m not going to let this be the defining factor of the rest of my life. I won’t deny it. But I choose not to be defined by it. I choose to anchor my hope to something that I know is real even though I can’t see it….

So what this great loss has done, and the way God answered that prayer to “not waste this grief” — to sum it up, I think I’d say that I feel Jesus. Not just know, not just know about, not just have the theology and the beliefs. But I feel Him. Because my broken heart opened so deep that He went there. And I feel Him more deeply than I’ve ever felt Him before.

You can purchase “Hope When Your Heart Is Breaking” by Ron Hutchcraft here.

Header photo courtesy of Cherry Laithang via Unsplash.

Dean Vander Mey of Set Free Ministries says anger, hurt, and injustice abound.

“If ever the world needed hope, it’s now. We’re living in some pretty tough days.”

Injustice inflicts pain, and the resulting anger may be justified. However, Vander Mey says, holding on to pain and anger doesn’t lead to healing or hope; only Christ can offer those.

“Jesus is the healer of a broken heart… Let’s turn back toward Him and ask Him to forgive us of what we hold. Here’s what most people hold: a lot of sin done to them; they just hold it and they get angry,” Vander Mey says.

“Jesus is saying, ‘I paid for all of it. Give me your heavy loads. I come for the weary to give them rest’.”

The path to healing

Ten years ago, Vander Mey walked into a local restaurant and met a man heavily burdened. He wore his pain and sorrow for the world to see. “[He] had slit his arms with a razor 30 times and the wounds were still oozing,” Vander Mey recalls. “The Lord spoke to me and said, ‘Help this man,’ and so I did.”

(Stock photo by Evelyn Chong via Pexels)

Reaching out with compassion, Vander Mey invited the man into a conversation. “I went up to him after he left the restaurant… And I said, ‘I see that you cut yourself, and I know you’re hurting. Can I help you?” The man accepted and began a journey toward healing, Vander Mey says, but it wasn’t easy.

“He had determined that his life was worthless. He was filled with hurt, pain, and anger, and there was no more hope.”

Past mistreatment in a Christian community filled the man with bitterness, anger, and resentment toward God and his fellow believers. “God was unsafe, church was unsafe, so he chose to do it his own way,” Vander Mey describes. “He was filled with anger. He had taken drugs; he had a mental diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenic [and] he was severely depressed… he had all kinds of labels.”

Through biblical counseling, confession, and repentance, this man left his anger at the foot of the cross and found new life in Christ. “That man today is not only happily married to his wife, but he has three kids, he’s gainfully employed, he has no mental illness, and he’s not on any medication,” Vander Mey says.

He’s also using his experiences and testimony to help others find freedom in Christ. “He just went with me three weeks ago to a young man that had overdosed and tried [committing suicide],” Vander Mey says. “I told him to wear short sleeves because the man who has scars gives the other man who had just cut himself hope.”

Next steps

(Photo by Stephanie Valencia on Unsplash)

Through biblical counseling, Set Free Ministries offers hope to the hurting – no matter what the pain source may be. Connect with Set Free here if you’re struggling. “There’s only peace with a living God. If our hope is not in God, then we have no hope at all,” Vander Mey says.

“If you’re without hope today, if it feels like you’re stuck, just know that darkness is not dark to our Heavenly Father. He knows right where you’re at.”

Most importantly, pray. Pray for individuals in your community who struggle with painful pasts. Pray they will find healing and freedom in Christ. Use this Prayercast video to pray for nationwide healing and reconciliation.

Header image is a representative stock photo courtesy Sandra Seitamaa via Unsplash.

The Compassionate Care team with Audio Scripture Ministries stands in the gap for Mozambicans who need hospice or palliative care. They recently celebrated their 100th patient — a sobering milestone showing how necessary their care has been.

Joshua Harrison with ASM explains, “Our Compassionate Care team helps distribute God’s Word in audio to their patients, and they deliver basic hygiene products and medicine. They offer compassionate care being the hands and feet of Jesus to people who receive very little hospital care, palliative care, [or] pain medication.”

(Photo courtesy of Audio Scripture Ministries)

The Compassionate Care ministry was started in 2015 by ASM missionary Dara Vanden Bosch in Mozambique. “She saw a young girl suffer with uncontrolled pain and die. As a trained nurse, Dara wanted to help reach out to that need in the community.”

Since then, Harrison says, “She has been training a team of three Mozambican women who now make regular visits to patients.”

There are currently 24 patients being served by ASM’s Compassionate Care team. The weekly journey to see each patient is difficult, and the team has to go “deep into the bush over pretty wild roads, sometimes bringing the supplies, bringing the care, talking with the patients, taking care of basic medical needs, and praying with them as well as seeing what they are listening to on their audio Bible and answering questions.”

The audio Bible distribution is just as critical as the medical care, if not more so. While the Compassionate Care team meets temporal, physical needs, they also address spiritual needs.

ASM records and distributes audio Bibles around the world, and making these resources available to patients in Mozambique prepares them for eternity.

“As people are lying there, many times unable to move from their sick beds and their families maybe don’t even know how to take care of them, we come, we pray with them, we give them some basic medicine, [and] we see how God brings physical comfort as they are listening to the audio Bible and amazing spiritual peace to those who are turning to Him.”

(Photo courtesy of Audio Scripture Ministries)

Last month, ASM also celebrated World Hospice and Palliative Care Day. The theme was, “Because I matter.”

Harrison says, “This resonates with our vision for the Mozambican Compassionate Care team because everything that we’re doing there is because each person is precious to God.

“As believers, we know everyone matters to God. ‘For God so loved the world.’ It’s a basic, underlying principle of why God is doing what He is doing and why He is calling us to reach out and to love people and to bring them into His Kingdom to proclaim the Gospel.”

Knowing this truth — that each person is precious in the eyes of our Heavenly Father — how does that drive us to action?

One thing you can do is come alongside ASM and their Compassionate Care team as they provide palliative and hospice care to beloved men, women, and children in Mozambique.

“We ask you to pray for our team as they make these visits. The travel is often precarious. The situations are often difficult. Many times since many of these patients come when they are at death’s doorstep, a lot of times the team doesn’t have long with these patients. So pray for open hearts to receive the Gospel,” asks Harrison.

(Photo courtesy of Audio Scripture Ministries)

“Pray for strength for the team as they meet with and pray for these patients and help their families cope with loss, that God would strengthen our team and also that He would do great things in people’s lives.”

To learn more about partnering with ASM, click here!

Header photo courtesy of Audio Scripture Ministries.

Ron Hutchcraft with Ron Hutchcraft Ministries says, “It’s pretty staggering [because] all of the sudden your nightly news programs, the lead story wasn’t North Korea. The lead story was not the White House. The lead story was suicide.”

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide rates in the US went up by 25 percent from 1999-2016. Half the states even saw suicide rates increase over 30 percent.

A suicide epidemic in the United States is growing like a thick, dark cloud snuffing out the light of hope in the hearts of men and women, girls and boys, from every walk of life.

If this is your struggle, Hutchcraft has a deeply important message for you: “I wanted people to know why leaving is not the best option — living is the best option — and why you would choose living when you feel like leaving.”

You Hold Deep Value

“First of all, you need to consider your value,” Hutchcraft implores. “You are made in God’s image, God’s workmanship, God’s treasure, He says. You are not a paper plate that you discard. You are fine china — too valuable to throw away because of who made you.

“Your value is demonstrated [and] proven by the fact that God’s Son, Jesus thought you were worth dying for. You just don’t throw away something with that kind of value.”

An oft-quoted verse from the Bible illustrates God’s deep, abiding, raw love for you. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

If you insert your own name in place of “the world”, it makes this verse even more personal. “For God so loved [Your Name]….” You have inherent, priceless worth in God’s eyes and are loved more than you can possibly know.

Because of this, Hutchcraft says, “I know that Jesus loves you more than anybody could in ways you never dreamed, that Jesus can heal you at a level where no one else can heal you because He can go places in your heart no one else can go, and He can carry you when you can’t walk another step.”

You Have Dear Treasures

Another thing Hutchcraft encourages is to remember the beloved treasures in your life.

“I consider your treasures to be not the stuff you own but the people you love and the people who love you. I have actually heard people say, ‘They’ll be better off without me. I’m such a burden.’

“I have never known any loved one — I have hugged and held so many loved ones of people who did end their own life — and I have never known one who is better off because their loved one died that way.”

God Has Your Tomorrows

“God has tomorrows for you that you have not seen…. I have been on an airplane with a lot of turbulence that lasted for quite awhile and it was a little scary. People would react — some screamed, some were frightened, some grabbed somebody, some prayed, but nobody jumped out of the plane. And the reason they didn’t jump out of the plane is because they knew it was temporary and even though it shook us up, it was not the whole story. It was not the whole flight. We would come through that,” Hutchcraft shares.

“The fact is, the Bible tells us that our time is just part of a big thing called eternity where we’re going to be forever. At worst, this is temporary. So don’t throw away all your tomorrows. Don’t trash something of such great value. Don’t trash the people you love. Don’t trash the future, the tomorrows that God has planned for you.

“It’s always better to choose living [rather] than leaving.”

Jesus Feels Your Pain

The poignant chorus from Tenth Avenue North’s song “Hold My Heart” goes like this:

One tear in the dropping rain

One voice in a sea of pain

Could the Maker of the stars

Hear the sound of my breaking heart?

One life is all I am

Right now I can barely stand

If You’re everything You say You are

Would You come close and hold my heart?

This song speaks to the truth that Hutchcraft echoes: Jesus knows your pain. Let Him hold you.

“I think the most important hotline is to reach out to the one who has grieved more deeply than any human ever grieved: Jesus. He carried all of the sin and depression and despair and brokenness — not only all of yours but all of the world…. He carried all of that in His soul when He died on the cross, so much so that the Bible calls Him a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief,” says Hutchcraft.

“Therefore, [Jesus] is uniquely qualified to hear the cry of your heart and go where no one else can go and begin to heal the pain, to love you where you have not been loved, to give you a love that no human could have given you at best, [and] to give you a reason to live and a purpose to live for.”

If You Have Lost Someone…

Maybe your story is marked by the severe pain of losing a loved one to suicide. If so, Hutchcraft reflects, “I would say to someone who has experienced this horrible loss, it is terrible to lose someone you love. It is maybe, if possible, more terrible to lose someone you love who is young. Number three, it is really perhaps the worst to lose someone when they chose it themselves. It is a deep, deep, deep grieving.

“I was able to assure people through my own experience, not so much with suicide, but with grief and the broken heart of losing in a moment my lifetime love, my very best friend. Two years ago, my wife [who] I did my whole life with, suddenly my life [would] be without her.”

He shares, “What has sustained me in the greatest heartbreak of my life has been that wonderful promise in Psalm 34:18 that says, ‘The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and…saves those who are crushed in spirit.’ Let Him be close. Let Him into the depths of your grief and let Him begin to restore those holes in your soul that are there.

“He will then begin to turn — through a process — the darkest, most hurting moments in your life into compassion for a world of hurting people. We are surrounded by hurting people who are covering a deeply wounded life and a deeply wounded heart and maybe even a desperate heart with a facade of smiles and maybe success. Somebody needs to be there for them.”

God’s Word affirms this in 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 where the Apostle Paul writes: “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.”

Hutchcraft says, “When you allow Jesus to begin to turn your hurt into hope for other people, it not only provides some healing for them. You become a channel for God’s love into their wounds.

“Through credentials you wish you never had, you become now strangely, painfully, expensively credentialled to be one of the agents of God’s comfort in a hurting world.”

If you want to learn more about Jesus’ love for you and how you can share His love with others, Ron Hutchcraft Ministries has several resources for you. Click here to visit the ministry’s website.

First, we reached out to Todd Nettleton with the Voice of the Martyrs USA to ask, why is this day is so important?

Your prayers are powerful. (Photo courtesy of the Voice of the Martyrs)

“International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church is a day where we hope every church will take some time out to follow the scriptural mandate that says, ‘Remember those in bonds as if you were bound with them.’”

He also says, “This is the first thing that persecuted Christians ask us to do. When our VOM staff travel around the world, we sit down, we meet with Christians facing persecution, we say, ‘We’re going back to America. How can American Christians help you?’ The first thing they ask is, ‘Pray for us. Please pray for us.’”

The power of prayer is clear throughout the Bible. In 1 Thessalonians 5:17, believers are commanded to “pray without ceasing”. And when Jesus began the parable of the persistent widow in Luke 18, verse one says, “And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.”

When it comes to the suffering, a tendency can be to focus our prayers on an end to the suffering. While not a bad thing to pray for, Nettleton says our persecuted Christian brothers and sisters tend to have a different perspective on suffering and faith.

“The challenging thing to me is that their prayer request is not, ‘Pray that we won’t have to suffer anymore. Pray that our government will change and suddenly we’ll be free to worship.’ Their prayer request is, ‘Pray that we’ll be faithful to Christ no matter the cost.’”

So on the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church, he reflects, “We’re literally joining hands with our persecuted brothers and sisters in hostile and restricted nations and we’re being unified with them through our prayers.”

Get Your Church Involved!

It’s not too late for your church to participate in IDOP this coming Sunday. The Voice of the Martyrs has several resources free for your church to utilize as you join the persecuted Church in prayer.

(Image courtesy of the Voice of the Martyrs)

“One of the things we do every year is a video…to show in your service on Sunday morning as you lead into the prayer time and it really illustrates the need for prayer. The video this year from VOM USA is a video that shares the story from Richard Wurmbrand’s imprisonment. Richard Wurmbrand was the founder of our ministry. He spent 14 years in prison and one of the things that the video says this year is, remember, we’re not only praying for Christian brothers and sisters who are being persecuted but Jesus actually calls us to pray for the persecutors as well.”

Other resources include church bulletin inserts, powerpoint slides, and more! Click here to get IDOP materials from Voice of the Martyrs.

Even if your church already has something else scheduled on November 5th, Nettleton says, “Okay, do it on November 12th. Do it on November 19th. Do it even after Thanksgiving on November 26th. But some Sunday, have your church gather around the throne of God and lift up our persecuted brothers and sisters. Every church ought to do this.”

Finally, Nettleton implores, “Don’t make this a day you that you sort of cross off on your calendar and then say, ‘Okay, yeah, we’re done with that for this year.’ This needs to be a pattern individually. And again, Voice of the Martyrs has resources. We have an app for your phone that will pull up a new prayer request every day. We’ll send you an email every week with fresh prayer requests.

“Praying for our persecuted brothers and sisters is not just a once a year thing. This is a great day where we kind of unite and join hands and pray together, but we need to be praying for Christians facing persecution every single day.”

A Prayer for the Persecuted Church

As the Global Body of Christ prepares to pray together for the persecuted Church, we asked Nettleton to share his prayer:

“Jesus, we’re so thankful for our brothers and sisters who say ‘Jesus is more important than my personal safety or my comfort or even my freedom. Following Jesus is the most important thing in my life.’ And I pray Lord that their example would inspire us Christians in free countries that we would be inspired by their example to be more passionate about our own faith, to be more passionate about our own time in your Word, our own time in prayer, that we would just follow their example and be inspired by that.

“Lord, we pray for Christians who are in prison, Christians who are homeless because they are not allowed to live in their village or because their home has been destroyed. Father, firstly, we pray that you would just encourage them, that you would strengthen them to face the challenges and the trials that they’re facing. We pray, Lord, that you would protect them and provide for them. Allow other Christians to help them, even Christians from outside the country.

“Father, the last thing I would pray is that they would know — supernaturally even at this moment — they would know someone is praying for them, that they’re not alone, they’re not forgotten, but that they are being prayed for right even at this moment. Lord, we thank you again for their example.

“I pray for the American Church as we remember the International Day of Prayer, as we join hands to pray for persecuted Christians, let them inspire us and let this become a regular part of our prayer lives to lift up those who are in prison, those who are being persecuted for their faith in Christ. In Jesus name, amen.”

There has been hurt and misunderstanding and anger on all sides — Trump supporters, Clinton enthusiasts, hesitant voters from both camps, third-party advocates — nobody has come out unscathed.

Often, it’s easiest to justify our position by pigeon-holing those who disagree with us into the most extreme stereotypes of their circle…. rather than speaking with and listening to them.

How can we do that at the broken dinner table this Thanksgiving?

Valuing Relationship

Ron Hutchcraft of Ron Hutchcraft Ministries says it starts with self-evaluation: “First of all, I’ve got to make a choice. Which is more important? On the scale of eternity, which way is more [pleasing] to God? This relationship with this family member, with this friend, with these people who might even be Facebook friends? Or my political views?

“I don’t think that’s a hard question to answer. I think, without realizing it, we have allowed the scale to get reversed and what we’ve allowed to weigh the most has been strong political passions whereas the relationship is of greater value to God.”

It can help to remember the things you have in common with difficult family members. And the best common denominator you can find is something that’s true of everyone.

“Whatever that neighbor might believe or might be like, they are made in the image of God, they are an image-bearer of their Creator…. We cannot let them become less valuable than some viewpoint we have.”

Valuing Witness

Hutchcraft says, “Secondly, I think we have to make a choice. Which is more important? My political passions, my political views? Or my representation of Jesus Christ?

“I would hate for somebody to stop listening to me when I share my Jesus because they can’t hear that beyond all of the shouting I have done politically. I don’t want to encumber Jesus with something that is not eternal. It is temporal. I don’t want people to be thinking, ‘I can’t listen to you, I can’t hear you because of the way you’ve treated me in this election season.’”

Ultimately, as Christians, our primary concern should not be, “Am I representing my political party well?” Our primary concern should be, “Am I representing my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ well?”

Hutchcraft encourages, “Realize that as a follower of Christ, my job is to be a thermostat that sets a temperature instead of a thermometer that reflects this temperature of divisiveness and fear and boiling passions. I’ve got to say, ‘I’m supposed to be setting a temperature.’ What is that temperature? It’s spelled out for us in Galatians 5 in what the Bible calls the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, patience, faithfulness, meekness, and self-control.”

If you seek God’s heart and embrace the fruit of the Spirit, you will be better able to represent Christ in your words, your actions, your generosity, and your pursuit of justice and truth for all people.

Valuing Humility

As we reflect this holiday season, pray that the Lord would convict you in areas where you did not honor God with your words or actions.

Hutchcraft says, “In some cases, it might mean I owe somebody an apology, that I have allowed myself to kind of get caught up in the heat and the frenzy of election passions and I have allowed it to put the beginnings of a wall between me and them. Whether they ever apologize, because they may have started it even, that doesn’t matter. As God’s kid, my job is to say, ‘I’m really sorry for that.’”

Christ-like humility also means being willing to give another person the opportunity to share their heart and fears.

“Ask God to help you hear their heart, not just their words. There are people on both sides who have had real fears of what would happen under whatever political leadership. There are people who have had significant concerns and who have been wounded by harsh words that have been spoken, who it has triggered old fears and old wounds.”

Valuing Empathy

The act of listening to someone we disagree with is more than just sitting there and giving them uninterrupted time to speak. Hutchcraft says it also means entering into their hurt with them.

“You look at…your sensitivity. Remember what the Bible says in Romans 12? ‘Rejoice with those who rejoice, mourn with those who mourn.’ You enter in, you recognize their feelings. It might not be how you’re feeling, but you respect their feelings, you try to empathize with them. Live in harmony with one another. [There are] lots of wounded people right now.”

Listening to someone’s feelings and empathizing with them is important. Because when someone feels heard, they are more likely to hear you too, and may give you a chance to share the truth and hope you have in Christ.

“I want to recognize this as an opportunity I have,” says Hutchcraft, “because there is a chance now to actually generate and represent contagious hope. In fact, 1 Peter says that’s what is going to draw people to us. ‘Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.’ And you just bring hope with you wherever you go.”

Valuing Longsuffering

What if you have a family member who does not relent in berating you? Or at the very least, treating you in a way that is hurtful? You can pray for an opportunity to gently confront them, especially if they claim to be a Christian as well (Matthew 18:15-17).

And meanwhile, see it as an opportunity to embrace longsuffering. Afterall, God is slow to anger with us in our offenses against Him. Longsuffering is part of God’s character (Psalm 86:15), and we are called to be like Him.

This is what Bible Study Tools has to say about the root of ‘longsuffering’ in God’s Word:

The words ‘erekh ‘appayim, translated longsuffering, mean literally, “long of nose” (or “breathing”), and, as anger was indicated by rapid, violent breathing through the nostrils, “long of anger,” or “slow to wrath.”…

The word in the New Testament rendered “longsuffering,” makrothumia […] is literally, “long of mind or soul” (regarded as the seat of the emotions), opposed to shortness of mind or soul, irascibility, impatience, intolerance.

Hutchcraft says this type of patience and humility is reflected in our attitude and conversations: “The Bible tells us that our attitude is to be one of humility, it is to be one of gentleness, and you think about what our tone is supposed to be. ‘Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.’ (Colossians 4:6)

“I have received so much grace from Jesus, I need to be extending that grace to people who I disagree with, who may not in my mind even deserve it, who aren’t treating me that way.”

Let us be “long of breath, mind, and soul” this Thanksgiving and embody Christ’s humility as we interact with others.

Valuing True Peace

Ultimately, Hutchcraft says, “Here’s a good goal for Thanksgiving and onward. Matthew 5:9, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.’ The Bible actually says, ‘Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.’ (Ephesians 4:3)”

Peace does not mean agreeing with everybody on everything. Peace does not mean you shove real problems under the food-laden table.

True peace takes hard work, both in yourself and in relationship with others. “We need to be peacemakers, building bridges, tearing down walls, bringing people together, and speaking calm in the midst of this chaos.”

The Perfect Time for Healing

Hutchcraft encourages us to do a few things. First, pray. “It might be time to say, ‘Lord, forgive me for my anger. Forgive me for speaking harshly. Forgive me if I’ve confused any people or obscured Jesus by my tone, by the way I’ve been.’”

Then, keeping with the theme and heart of Thanksgiving, consider writing that difficult family member or friend a letter.

“Write a note to them and just thank them for the things you appreciate about them, the things they are, the things they do. Really think about that letter and let it just be an ‘I appreciate you’ letter and maybe bring some healing into a very broken time.”

What if family members on both sides of the political fence left Thanksgiving this year saying, ‘Wow, I have never felt so heard and loved by someone I disagree with. That’s not their normal response. I wonder what’s different about them?’

By valuing our relationships, our witness for the Lord, Christ’s humility, empathy, longsuffering, and true peace, it could be the start of a great Gospel movement and deep spiritual healing in our nation.

“’Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the LORD Almighty.” Zechariah 4:6b

The show will premiere on a National Religious Broadcasting station on DIRECTV October 19^th.  Hosting the show is Joni Eareckson Tada, founder of Joni and Friends.

Joni and Friends focuses on disability ministry, but the show is for anyone who is suffering.  People experiencing any kind of pain, loneliness will ask questions about why God allows suffering. "We're not trying to give pat answers. We're taking on tough questions from people who are Christians or people who are in the secular world. They want to know why they should believe and trust in this God," said Steve Appel of Joni and Friends.

Tada will also invite theologians to speak on Biblical foundations. It will often be taped on-site with the very people asking the questions. 

The show is a unique answer to a great need. "Currently in our society I'm not sure there's another program out there that's addressing these issues. Sometimes they'll gloss over it, or they'll just say 'all things work for
the glory of God,' and that's not what somebody wants to hear when they're suffering," Appel said.

The hope is that unbelievers will tune into the show during their time of need and that the
Gospel will reach them. To reach more of the secular community, Appel hopes to move to more stations. "Probably we'll be approaching the Fox Family Network, the ABC Family network, things of that nature. And if they carry that, then we would certainly reach people who do not have a relationship with Christ," said Appel. 

Nearly 16 million DIRECTV subscribers have the NRB channel where the show will be aired. 

Appel has a prayer request: "People could pray that this program touches millions of people's hearts, that their hearts are open to receive the Gospel, that they're open to receive that God is trustworthy. He's faithful, but He doesn't always reveal everything. Many things we won't know this side of Heaven."