Dear Lord,

I pray for your healing balm for our nation. Bless us all with repentant hearts, forgiving hearts, hearts and minds stayed on You. Heal us of our sins and brokenness regarding this issue of race. I praise You Father for Your hand in the design and founding of this nation which provided a means to right the wrongs of sinful men. Forgive those who focus on the pain of past generations, rather than the mighty healing You have wrought, Father. Heal hearts, minds, and spirits that we may follow You, be strengthened by You, be restored by You. Give Your Church and this nation eyes to see how your Gracious, Merciful, and Mighty Hand have been at work working good from what was meant for evil, Father. Amen.

I recommend reading/ watching Dutch Sheets’ Give Him 15 from today (2/14) as well. It provides an awesome testimony and opportunity to join our prayers with those from generations past. Please consider posting it in the IFA blog.

Yes I liked this post about Keturah’s keys to healing.This brings to my mind how even Moses was judged by his brother Aaron& sister Miriam when he married an Ethiopian woman.
May GOD heal our African brothers & sisters when they were looked down upon&were wrongly judged
Lord have mercy

I am caucasian, 2nd generation born in America, most of my ancestors from Poland, so i do not believe any of my ancestors oppressed African Americans, but I pray for forgiveness of the early Americans who somehow were Wealthy plantation owners yet bankrupt in human decency & love who decided that kidnapping human beings in Africa & shipping them on unsanitary ships in shackles to be slaves in America was acceptable. Father i pray that you forgive our nation for those atrocities, and restore to African Americans what was stolen from their forefathers. Father restore hope & dignity after many generations of hopelessness oppression. & poverty. Father do whatever necessary to bring true absolute spiritual, mental, emotional deliverance to all African Americans who are still in cycles of poverty & hopelessness or settling for less than all they could be, being deceived by lies that they cant or things havent changed or cant change. Thank you Father that you heard the cries of oppressed Israel after hundreds of years of Egyptian oppression. Your ear is open to the cries of the oppressed & you have put great & precious instructions & promises in your word & about the hope, help, & deliverance you offer all of us! Thank you!

I experienced a different type of oppression & suppression that affected me most of my life, born & raised in the early 60s -70s by an alcoholic father & mentally ill mother. definitely not a loving peaceful christian upbringing, I did not even have the social skills necessary to make friends when i got into gradeschool, the social “bonding” mechanism was just never there due to maternal abuse & neglect, & my dad who regularly drunk himself into a stuper to tune my mom out so he wouldnt be tempted to beat her due to outrage from her depression & manic mental illness with her malicious abusive venomous mouth & temper tantrums. he failed at times, police were at my house several times for domestic abuse. The social system was not what it is now. I cried to teachers to no avail. they called my mom who Suddenly acted mentally well & denied everything calling me an exaggerator & liar. To add insult to injury i was mocked & mercilessly teased & shunned at school, accused of being lesbian, spent lunch periods hiding in the bathroom wondering why i was not able join in with the fun i could hear the other kids having out in the play, it was safer to just withdraW to the bathroom which i did from grade school through most of high school. Then looking for love with men men just repeated the cycle of rejection so two divorces and 3 kids later i was still a mess! i know first hand about living under oppression, under fear, under unfair circumstances, always feeling stuck in cycles that seemed unfair, impossible to fully break free of. I was also stuck in the bondage of religion for 25+ years even after hearing the gospel & receiving Christ as savior, it took many years to overcome that spiritually oppressive religious cycle on top of the inherent dysfunction i had bern raised with. I am not saying this to diminish the suffering of the African Americans or to say that i can understand “THEIR” pain, their oppression” their many generations who suffered, but i share this to say i understand rejection & hopelessness in general, on the one-generation level i experienced, & it was frustrating! I was angry, i was hurt, i felt held back from succeeding at anything, the oppression followed me to school and socially, i didnt go to college, it was hard enough getting through grade school & high school, then it followed me as an adult to work. Trying to succeed without all the necessary social skills education and polish others had. growing up without hope without confidence, made me feel like an outsider & different, with extra challenges every where i went in everything i attempted.

when i finally got down to serious business with God through fasting with serious daily prayer & daily bible study & repentance of all known sin, in the fall of 2013, after many years of failure and depression,by the spring & summer of 2014 i finally met the true God of the bible who’s Faithfulness & Love began a healing cycle mentally, emotionally, & spiritually, from the lifelong cycle of oppression & suppression, and helped me build Social skills & confidence that were still lacking Even in my late 40s early 50s. God definitely will do everything He says he will do, it doesnt come from doing it OUR way or through mantras or religion, it comes from God through Jesus Christ, aka the WORD of God, & getting aligned with the word, saying no to sin & compromise, saying yes to Prayer and the word, forgiving our enemies in our heart as well as our outward behavior, and obeying the what Corinthians tells us love IS, by being humble, not keeping a record of wrongs, instead we are to think the best & hope the best (about God and people, And ourselves! that God will cause even our enemies to be at peace with us and will honor his promises, that who the son sets free is free indeed. there will still be enemies though but it wont be the color of our skin or the”furrows “ from our youth, but a spiritual battle for the faith of our heart, but Psalms says it best: many are the adversities of the righteous but God delivers them from ALL of them.

Father i pray for all who still struggle daily under years & even generations of oppression, especially African Americans. Father You heard the cries of oppressed Israel and sent a deliverer. Father i would never be able to understand growing up black growing up in an extreme poverty crime ridden neighborhood, but i can identify as a caucasian woman who spent many years in Extreme spiritual & emotional poverty & hopelessness, & i see how far you brought me out of it in just a short period of time of seeking you with all my heart soul mind & strength. I pray that you would get all churches right especially those in the inner cities to get of all compromise and sin, to truly seek your face through old fashioned Biblical tried & true fasting & repentance, to be Your true servants, beacons of light & hope & healing to the hurting & hopeless in the innercities and America in general & the nations. In Jesus name i pray and thank you!

I am caucasian, second generation born in USA, Ancestors from Poland, so i do not believe my ancestors oppressed African Americans, but living in America, I pray for the forgiveness of the early Americans who somehow were Wealthy plantation owners yet bankrupt in human decency and love who decided that kidnapping human beings in Africa and shipping them on unsanitary ships in shackles to be slaves in America was acceptable. Father i pray that you forgive our nation for those atrocities, and restore to African Americans what was stolen from their forefathers. Father restore hope and dignity after many generations of hopelessness oppression. & poverty. Father do whatever necessary to bring true absolute spiritual, mental, emotional deliverance to all African Americans who are still in cycles of poverty & hopelessness or settling for less than all they could be, being deceived by lies that they cant or things havent changed or cant change. Thank you Father that you heard the cries of oppressed Israel after hundreds of years of Egyptian oppression. Your ear is open to the cries of the oppressed & you have put great & precious instructions & promises in your word & about the hope, help, & deliverance you offer all of us! Thank you!

I experienced a different type of oppression & suppression that affected me most of my life, born & raised in the early 60s -70s by an alcoholic father & mentally ill mother. definitely not a loving peaceful christian upbringing, I did not even have the social skills necessary to make friends when i got into gradeschool, the social “bonding” mechanism was just never there due to maternal abuse & neglect, & my dad who regularly drunk himself into a stuper to tune my mom out so he wouldnt be tempted to beat her due to outrage from her depression & manic mental illness with her malicious abusive venomous mouth & temper tantrums. he failed at times, police were at my house several times for domestic abuse. The social system was not what it is now. I cried to teachers to no avail. they called my mom who Suddenly acted mentally well & denied everything calling me an exaggerator & liar. To add insult to injury i was mocked & mercilessly teased & shunned at school, accused of being lesbian, spent lunch periods hiding in the bathroom wondering why i was not able join in with the fun i could hear the other kids having out in the play, it was safer to just withdraW to the bathroom which i did from grade school through most of high school. Then looking for love with men men just repeated the cycle of rejection so two divorces and 3 kids later i was still a mess! i know first hand about living under oppression, under fear, under unfair circumstances, always feeling stuck in cycles that seemed unfair, impossible to fully break free of. I was also stuck in the bondage of religion for 25+ years even after hearing the gospel & receiving Christ as savior, it took many years to overcome that spiritually oppressive religious cycle on top of the inherent dysfunction i had bern raised with. I am not saying this to diminish the suffering of the African Americans or to say that i can understand “THEIR” pain, their oppression” their many generations who suffered, but i share this to say i understand rejection & hopelessness in general, on the one-generation level i experienced, & it was frustrating! I was angry, i was hurt, i felt held back from succeeding at anything, the oppression followed me to school and socially, i didnt go to college, it was hard enough getting through grade school & high school, then it followed me as an adult to work. Trying to succeed without all the necessary social skills education and polish others had. growing up without hope without confidence, made me feel like an outsider & different, with extra challenges every where i went in everything i attempted.

when i finally got down to serious business with God through fasting with serious daily prayer & daily bible study & repentance of all known sin, in the fall of 2013, after many years of failure and depression,by the spring & summer of 2014 i finally met the true God of the bible who’s Faithfulness & Love began a healing cycle mentally, emotionally, & spiritually, from the lifelong cycle of oppression & suppression, and helped me build Social skills & confidence that were still lacking Even in my late 40s early 50s. God definitely will do everything He says he will do, it doesnt come from doing it OUR way or through mantras or religion, it comes from God through Jesus Christ, aka the WORD of God, & getting aligned with the word, saying no to sin & compromise, saying yes to Prayer and the word, forgiving our enemies in our heart as well as our outward behavior, and obeying the what Corinthians tells us love IS, by being humble, not keeping a record of wrongs, instead we are to think the best & hope the best (about God and people, And ourselves! that God will cause even our enemies to be at peace with us and will honor his promises, that who the son sets free is free indeed. there will still be enemies though but it wont be the color of our skin or the”furrows “ from our youth, but a spiritual battle for the faith of our heart, but Psalms says it best: many are the adversities of the righteous but God delivers them from ALL of them.

Father i pray for all who still struggle daily under years & even generations of oppression, especially African Americans. Father You heard the cries of oppressed Israel and sent a deliverer. Father i would never be able to understand growing up black growing up in an extreme poverty crime ridden neighborhood, but i can identify as a caucasian woman who spent many years in Extreme spiritual & emotional poverty & hopelessness, & i see how far you brought me out of it in just a short period of time of seeking you with all my heart soul mind & strength. I pray that you would get all churches right especially those in the inner cities to get of all compromise and sin, to truly seek your face through old fashioned Biblical tried & true fasting & repentance, to be Your true servants, beacons of light & hope & healing to the hurting & hopeless in the innercities and America in general & the nations. In Jesus name i pray and thank you!

Father, I give You thanks for Your wonder! You have had a plan for mankind before the foundation of the world. Your works are marvelous. I thank You because, in slavery, we came to know Your Beautiful Son, Jesus. I thank You because You enabled slaves to be a great part of building America to the place she became, even when they were treated lower than animals and had no place. I thank You for the wisdom and knowledge You imparted to invent useful things: things that are used to this day. I thank You for the doctors, lawyers, nurses, builders, senators, congress people, preachers, chefs and many more that You have created. I thank You because what some men intended for evil, You meant for good. I thank You, Father, that in this 21st century, many of us are serving You with all of our hearts. I thank You, Most Holy and Sovereign, that You are not a respecter of persons, that mankind is the height of Your creation. You tell us in Your Word, in Revelation, that John looked and he saw people from every, tribe, kindred, color. I thank You for John 3:16. BLESS YOUR HOLY NAME! IN JESUS’ NAME. HALLELUJAH and AMEN!

I am sorry. This is not right…nor do I think the thought process is biblical. God does not show favoritism (Acts 10:34, Romans 2:11-12) and neither should we. Show me in the Bible where He has separated us as black vs white…show me in the Bible where God views people of any color (brown, white, yellow, black) and singles them out as purposefully and intentionally superior one over the other based on these qualities (or like the one singled out in this article).
Genesis 1:27
“So God created humankind in his own image; in the image of God he created him: male and female he created them”… Reading into anything God has done like has been done in the article deters from that truth immensely and such ideas are birthed in the hearts of man (Psalm 140:3, 141:14). Only man, or woman, would single out and use race as an issue to divide us or tell us we need to think differently than we do about this issue in this way and then tell us to do it because they think God says so in such a speculatory way.
We need to think biblically about any issue. I am not on board with this approach to interpreting Scripture or reinventing it to include that the covenantal patriarchs of Israel should be singled out like this. I do not want to debate the issue and I am not trying to be divisive, but there is something not right here. I am a woman of color. Since the woman who wrote this article appears to be a “godly” woman-is it better for us to view her as godly or black or a woman. Is she promoting blackness over godliness? I don’t know, but I do not agree with this approach to interpreting Scripture. Can’t wait for Jesus to return because quite honestly this won’t be an issue for us in God’s Kingdom. It shouldn’t be an issue now.
Regarding atrocities in general, they are commented against all kinds of human beings-every color, age, shape, and size throughout history. Turn on the news anymore and you can’t help but notice the depravity. Because it is so prevalent doesn’t make it acceptable, but it is the nature of sin. And the seed of every sin rests in the heart of EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US (Romans 3:10-12). I have not suffered any atrocity of slavery and for any struggles I have, I am able because of Christ, to declare victory, not victimhood. God can use anything for good and His glory, but I am concerned here…by Jesus’ stripes, we are ALL healed…don’t know how we as a nation decided that “all men are created equal” was determined to be such a curse. Praying for everyone for discernment. God bless you all.

John 3:16

I do not believe that February is the only month to Celebrate a Race of People who built America with their Blood, Sweat, and Tears loss of families probably buried all over the United States some believe this was an accomplishment for the Black Race to offer the shortest Month on our calendar. We are Black, Brown, Light Brown, Dark Brown etc. everyday of the year our flight as a People can not be compared to any other cause that many have/are trying to compare their causes, we didn’t choose our color/race, but choosing a sexual partner is a choice. I believe the Black race came into the Bible long before Keturah thru Noah and his family, but by ABRAM – ABRAHAM taking Keturah as his wife this made her the Mother of many nations because he was Chosen by GOD to be the Father of many Nations. Thank you for allowing me to comment. A Sister Soldier For GOD!!!

Amen!
I had the privilege of meeting Venessa Battle several years ago in PA and admire her as a mighty woman of God and proponent of peace. Thank you, Dr. Battle, for educating us on the keys to reconciling the division in our nation as we purpose to become one Body in Christ, one nation under God.

Powerful words thank you for sharing I believe freedom comes when we refuse to be a victim Satan has paralyzed so many with a victim mentality making them feel powerless to forgive and powerless to overcome their circumstances this was me I was stuck in the pain of a sexually abusive past then Father God opened my eyes and revealed the truth and I was set free from the past from this spiritual attack of a victim mentality!!!! I’m no longer a victim but an overcomer!!!! May many others be willing to allow Father God to open their eyes to their true identity as Overcomers and Victors understanding we are only passing through this world of pain and struggles to get to our final destination

Yes, I prayed with you for this healing. Amen to you insightful words.