Turn // Malachi 4:6

Malachi 4:6 (NIV) | He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.

Oh, how I pray for the promise in today’s verse to come to pass soon! One of evil’s great tactics to try and wrestle power to create political wins is to separate children from their parents. It was true in Nazi Germany and Mao’s China for example, and it’s happening in our modern-day cultural revolution. Why do you think this is? For starters, children are impressionable and easily manipulated emotionally. I also cannot think of anything that makes a person more vulnerable than the fear of losing a child, and that can manifest in a willingness to compromise almost anything to keep a child safe and close.

Ephesians 6:1-3 says, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ‘Honor your father and mother’ — which is the first commandment with a promise — ‘so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.” If you will, pray today for the families where children are being lured away from their parents. Pray that they will return by turning their hearts to their parents. Also pray for the parents of wayward children that they follow God’s will, word, and way. And may we all remain committed to doing what is right in God’s eyes by turning collectively to the Lord!