Keeping the Main Thing the Main Thing   DAY 6

Joe found the young  girl unconscious in her upstirs closet.  By the time he got there, the structure was a raging inferno.  No one else dared go inside.  But scooped up the girl, and took his only exit, straight out the second story window into the bushes below.  The girl lived.

Joe sustained three cuts and two sprained ankles—and an avalanche of questions.  The media wanted to know how he planned to pay for the girl’s food, clothing, and health care now that he’d rescued her.  A pastor asked if time spent saving the girl from temporal flames might be better spent saving people from eternal ones.  The social justice coordinator at a local parish insisted that if Joe truly cared about saving lives, he’d care about all life and spend equal time rescuing poor workers from rich corporations.   The local Congressman asked if Joe supported tax hikes aimed at reducing fire risk.
Joe just kept looking at the girl.

The above story is contrived but a similar scenario played out in the public square every single day.  Only the issue is abortion.

Like Joe, pro-lifers face questions from critics: “are you willing to adopt all these unwanted kids you don’t want aborted?” Or, “Why do you only care about babies before they are born?”  For the most part, the questions are not designed to promote understanding.  They are carefully engineered to silence pro-life advocates.  They are distractions from the main issue.  They attack the pro-lifer rather than dealing with the issue of abortion.
The attacks are completely false.  Pro-life Christians do care.  For example, pro-life pregnancy centers now outnumber abortion clinics two to one.  These centers—funded in large measure by concerned pro-lifers—provide many abortion alternatives including parenting classes, baby clothes, and adoption services.  And, studies show that pro-life citizens give more to charity than their pro-abortion counterparts.
But even if pro-lifers didn’t have this track record, how does it follow that because we oppose abortion, we must take personal responsibility for all of life’s ills?  Imagine saying to the American Cancer Society, “You have no right to oppose cancer unless you also work to oppose all illnesses such as diabetes, Chron’s Disease and Heart Attacks?  It’s absurd!
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Just as Joe kept his eyes on the girl, we must keep ours on the unborn.  Nothing can justify the intentional taking of innocent life.
 
 

​What to Pray for Today:

​1. Pray for God’s Provision 
Planned Parenthood gets millions each year in tax dollars, but pro-life pregnancy centers get none.  Pray that churches and benefactors would stand with them sso their efforts  to reach abortion-minded women could grow.
 

​2. Pray for Pro-lifers in the Public Square
Public servants who oppose abortion are constantly attacked for not doing enough to help the poor.  Pray that they stay on message: Abortion is wrong because it intentionally kills an innocent human being.  And that’s why government policy should encourage private charities rather than undermine them.

3. Pray for Legal Covering
Increasingly, pro-life pregnancy centers are under attack from hostile politicians.  California, for example, just passed a law requiring these centers to refer for abortion. Pray for a successful reversal of all unjust laws like this one.