The Snare

How do you pray for a child of God who is running away from Him?  Our hearts are breaking as we pray for Laticia, the young woman I told you about in in Fortaleza.   God saved her from her addiction to cocaine back in June.  She went through intensive discipleship and stayed clean for months.   Then last week she ran headlong back into her old addictions.
 
After 30 years of parenting, Renee and I have learned to have a long view, and to refuse to believe that a setback is the end of the story.  I have a long list of prayers that God eventually answered.  We continue to learn to not lose heart in praying.  This is God’s way.
 
Remember the prophet Hosea buying his wife Gomer back out of prostitution, again and again?  I reread that story today.  And God reminded me that God highlights Gomer as a picture of how we, God’s people, keep returning to our old sins.  So Laticia’s return to her sins reminds me of how often I’ve returned to my sins, and how often God has mercifully rescued me, again and again.
 
I pray for mercy.  Laticia deserves all that she’s suffering right now.  But I pray for mercy.  I pray that God will restrain the enemy who has rushed in like a flood to reclaim what he believes is his.  She is not his.  But right now he’s trying to persuade her that she is.  And I pray that God will give her the gift of repentance and set her free from the snare of the devil.  (2 Timothy 2:24-24)  Please join us in the prayer-fight for Laticia’s life, and for the life of the little one in her womb due to be born in 2 weeks.
 
This photo is of Laticia sitting on the street weeks before she returned to her sins.  After this photo was taken, she shared that as she sat there she was being severely tempted.