Sons of Issachar Newsletter: May 6, 2026
Beloved, this week the headlines all carried the same shape, and it is worth naming the shape before we work through them. A president launched an operation to push ships through a closed strait, then paused it within forty-eight hours after Iranian drones, missiles, and small boats forced the question of whether the war was truly over. An Israeli ceasefire that began last October entered another week of demolitions, drone strikes, and the slow westward movement of a line. Inside Iran a three-month internet blackout continued to crush ordinary work, family life, and witness. A federal department that had been shut down for seventy-six days, the longest agency shutdown in our history, was finally funded again. A bill advanced in the Senate that would require an American adult to upload a government identification or submit a face scan before talking to a chatbot. A federal trade regulator banned a major data broker from selling our location data. A drought map quietly grew until more than half the country was in it. A chain of moderate earthquakes circled the western Pacific. The President of the United States renewed his public attacks on the pope, and a believing reader is left asking what to do with a week that feels like it is asking too many questions at once.
The answer is not a louder voice. The answer is a longer memory. The same Lord who told us that there will be wars and rumors of wars also told us not to be alarmed, because the end is not yet. The men of Issachar knew what Israel ought to do because they first understood the times. We will work through the times below, soberly, and then we will pray.
"And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet."
1. The Strait of Hormuz, Project Freedom, and the Limits of a Ceasefire
On Sunday, May 3, President Trump announced Project Freedom, a U.S. naval mission to escort stranded commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz. Roughly two thousand ships have been sitting on either side of the strait since the United States and Israel struck Iranian nuclear and military sites on February 28. The April 8th ceasefire paused major hostilities but didn't reopen the waterway. Project Freedom was an attempt to do that by force of presence rather than force of arms.
Iran answered within a day. On Monday, May 4, the United Arab Emirates said its air defenses engaged twelve ballistic missiles, three cruise missiles, and four drones launched from Iran. A drone strike sparked a large fire at the Fujairah Petroleum Industries Zone and wounded three Indian workers. An Iranian drone struck a tanker owned by the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company in the strait. Iranian state media claimed two missiles had hit a U.S. frigate that refused to turn back. U.S. Central Command denied any vessel was struck and said American attack helicopters destroyed six Iranian Revolutionary Guard small boats that had attempted to interfere with the operation. President Trump later said seven boats had been hit. A South Korean container ship anchored off the UAE coast caught fire after an explosion. The UAE, which had been largely insulated since the April 8 ceasefire, ordered all schools and nurseries to switch to remote learning through Friday.
By Tuesday, May 5, Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared that Operation Epic Fury, the original air and naval campaign launched on February 28, was concluded. Hours later the President announced he was pausing Project Freedom escort operations to leave room for a final agreement with Iran, while keeping the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports in place. A senior official told reporters Trump had been presented earlier with a more aggressive plan to open the strait by force and had chosen the more cautious route at the last minute. By Wednesday morning the President was again threatening renewed bombing if Iran did not reopen the strait. Pakistan, China, and other intermediaries continue to press for a framework deal. Iran has now signaled a willingness to settle the Hormuz question first and the nuclear question second, a reversal of Washington's original demands.
The picture is sober. A ceasefire that does not reopen a strait is a ceasefire only in name. A naval escort that draws missile fire from three directions in a single afternoon and damage to three of five ships trying to run the blockade is not yet peace. The danger is not that war returns, but that war never left, only narrowed to a smaller channel of water and a longer set of nerves. Believers should not draw a prophetic timetable from this. We should remember instead that the Lord rebuked the wind and the sea, and they obeyed Him, and that no operation named Freedom delivers the kind of freedom He gives. We pray for the mariners stranded on those vessels, for the workers burned in Fujairah, for restraint in Tehran and in Washington, and for the day when the seas will give up their dead and there shall be no more sea.
"And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, 'Peace! Be still!' And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm."
"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more."
Al Jazeera — UAE accuses Iran of attacks as 'large fire' breaks out at oil refinery (May 4, 2026) CBS News — U.S. sinks 7 small Iranian boats as Iran launches attacks on UAE and ships (May 5, 2026) Al Jazeera — Has the US accepted Iran's demand to settle Hormuz first, nuclear later? (May 6, 2026) Associated Press — The Latest: Trump threatens bombing if Iran does not reopen strait (May 6, 2026)
2. Israel and Gaza: A Yellow Line, an Orange Line, and a Truce That Keeps Burying People
The October 2025 ceasefire in Gaza is now in its seventh month, and Palestinian medical sources report that 828 people have been killed in the strip since it took effect. Israeli operations continue most days. On Tuesday, May 5, strikes in Gaza killed at least three Palestinians, including a fifteen-year-old in a strike on a police station in northern Gaza. On Wednesday, May 6, an Israeli airstrike killed a senior officer in the Hamas-led Gaza police force, according to local medics. Israel's Army Radio reported earlier in the week that the military has been gradually pushing the ceasefire's Yellow Line westward, expanding territorial control to about fifty-nine percent of the strip. A new Orange Line was announced this week, expanding the zone further. The Gaza rebuild is now estimated at seventy-one billion dollars, with most homes and nearly all businesses destroyed.
In Cairo, Nikolay Mladenov, the Board of Peace pointman appointed under the U.S.-backed Gaza framework, has been pressing a roadmap that would require Hamas to disarm completely over two hundred and eighty-one days in five stages. A unified front of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine has rejected the disarmament prerequisite, insisting first on full implementation of the existing ceasefire's first phase, including the agreed entry of six hundred aid trucks per day. A U.S.-led monitoring body said this week, in a letter obtained by The Times of Israel, that Israel is not adhering to key parts of the first phase, but that it will not have to if Hamas refuses the disarmament framework. Prime Minister Netanyahu's security cabinet meeting was abruptly canceled on Sunday in favor of smaller consultations. Israeli officials are openly threatening to resume the war.
Off the coast of Greece, the Global Sumud Flotilla, a humanitarian convoy bound for Gaza, was intercepted in international waters last week by Israeli forces. One hundred and sixty-eight crew members were transferred to Greek vessels and taken to Crete. Two activists, a Spanish national and a Brazilian, are still in Israeli custody at Ashkelon, where an Israeli court has now extended their detention until May 10. Their attorney told Reuters they were beaten and kept handcuffed and blindfolded. Spain and Brazil have called the detentions illegal. Forty-seven other flotilla vessels remain at sea, planning to anchor near southern Crete before deciding whether to continue.
A ceasefire that buries hundreds of people is a contradiction in terms, and the church should not soften it by polite reading. We can mourn the children of Gaza without joining any of the political movements that have made their suffering a brand. We can pray for Israel without endorsing every decision of its government. We can ask for the entry of aid trucks and the release of detained civilians without losing sight of the hostages whose families still live with empty rooms. The land is the Lord's, and so are the people who weep on every side of it. Christians do not get to pick which mothers to mourn for.
"My eyes are spent with weeping; my stomach churns; my bile is poured out to the ground because... infants and babies faint in the streets of the city."
"Pray for the peace of Jerusalem! 'May they be secure who love you!'"
Reuters — Israeli airstrike kills colonel in Hamas-led Gaza police force, medics say (May 6, 2026) Al Jazeera — Israel threatens Gaza war resumption to force disarmament as 'truce' frays (May 3, 2026) Reuters — Israeli court extends detention of two Gaza flotilla activists until May 10 (May 5, 2026) Al Jazeera — Gaza aid flotilla vessels taken to Crete after Israeli interception (May 1, 2026)
3. Iran Beyond the Strait: A Country Sealed Off From the Inside
While the cameras stayed fixed on the Strait of Hormuz, the country on the other side of those drones was being squeezed at home. Iran's nationwide internet blackout has now stretched into its third month, and the Associated Press reported on May 1 that the shutdown is crushing businesses in an economy already battered by war, sanctions, and the death of the Supreme Leader. Workers cannot send invoices. Small merchants cannot reach suppliers. Families cannot reach relatives abroad. Underground churches and persecuted believers, already operating at risk, lose the encrypted messaging tools that allowed them to coordinate care for one another. Reuters reported on April 30 that Iranian economic collapse, while real and worsening, may come too late to alter the political picture before further conflict.
A blackout of this scale is not a side note. It is one of the clearest control-system events of our age, and it should sober anyone who imagines that connectivity, commerce, and ordinary speech are guaranteed by the calendar. A regime under pressure can narrow the channels of communication, money, work, and family in a few hours. The American church should pay attention because the same logic, in different forms and clothed in better intentions, is rising in our own country. We will say more in section six. For now, the Iranian believer needs our prayer. Persecuted converts are still meeting in living rooms. Pastors of underground fellowships are still discipling new Christians. Mothers are still teaching their children verses by candlelight when the power flickers. The Lord can run His Word through a country that has shut its windows, and He has done so before.
"Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands far away; for truth has stumbled in the public squares, and uprightness cannot enter."
"Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word."
"Pray for us, that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored."
Associated Press — Iran's monthslong internet shutdown is crushing businesses in an already battered economy (May 1, 2026) Reuters — Iranian economic collapse may come too late for Trump (April 30, 2026)
4. Lebanon: Twelve Villages Warned, an Air Force Looking East
In southern Lebanon the ceasefire announced earlier this year continued to fray. The Israeli military told residents of twelve villages to evacuate and reported striking twenty-five Hezbollah targets in a single day, including weapon depots. The home of one mayor in southern Lebanon was reportedly hit. Israeli ground vehicles drove into the Ras al-Bayada area on May 5. Lebanese authorities say Israeli operations have killed more than two thousand six hundred people and forced more than a million to flee since the heaviest fighting last year, with at least forty more killed since the war began at the end of February. Lebanon's prime minister said this week that it was premature to talk about any high-level meeting with Israel while ceasefire conditions remain unresolved and hostilities with Hezbollah continue. German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, in Berlin alongside Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, said Israel had every right to be in southern Lebanon while warning of the damage of war.
At a handover ceremony at Tel Nof Airbase on the same day, the incoming Israeli Air Force chief, Major General Omer Tischler, said the force was closely monitoring Iran and was prepared to take the entire Air Force eastward if required. An Israeli source quoted by CNN said Israel and the United States were preparing for a possible short campaign to pressure Iran during negotiations. The phrase short campaign is one of the more dangerous phrases in the modern military vocabulary. Few campaigns named that way have ended quickly.
There is a particular weariness in this section of the world that the church should be slow to dismiss. The Christians of Lebanon, who still represent the largest percentage of believers in the Arab world, have been displaced, bombed, and forgotten by a global church that mostly cannot find their churches on a map. The witness of these brothers and sisters is more important than the analysis of any commentator. Pray for them by name when you can.
"Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep."
"Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body."
The Times of Israel — Live updates: German FM says Israel has 'every right' to be in south Lebanon (May 5, 2026) Reuters — Lebanese PM says premature to talk of any high-level meeting with Israel (May 6, 2026)
5. American Institutions Under Pressure: A Shutdown Ends, the Voting Rights Act Frays, a Pill Is Pulled From the Mail, a Former Director Is Charged… Again
On Thursday, May 1, President Trump signed a bipartisan bill funding most of the Department of Homeland Security, ending the longest agency shutdown in American history at seventy-six days. Funding had lapsed on February 14 and had stretched on through three months of missed paychecks for tens of thousands of TSA, Coast Guard, FEMA, and Secret Service employees. Immigration enforcement agencies had continued to operate through separate funding from last year's One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The new law funds twenty of the department's twenty-two agencies through the end of the fiscal year. ICE and Border Patrol will be funded through a separate seventy-billion-dollar reconciliation package that Republicans hope to put on the President's desk by June 1. Secretary Markwayne Mullin, who replaced Kristi Noem during the shutdown, called the day the end of an unnecessary chapter. Federal employee unions called it overdue. Both were right.
The same week, the Supreme Court continued accelerating its decision in a Louisiana redistricting case widely understood to gut what remains of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. South Carolina has now joined the southern redistricting push, and other states are already redrawing congressional maps in anticipation. The chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee told NPR that twelve to nineteen seats in majority-minority districts are now at risk. A federal appeals court separately blocked the distribution of mifepristone by mail, returning the abortion drug debate to a familiar courtroom posture and reigniting state-by-state implementation fights. May Day demonstrations across U.S. cities reflected wider anger over wages, fuel costs from the Iran war, immigration enforcement, and political fatigue. These were not all the same protest, and they should not be flattened into one narrative, but the pattern of restless streets is plain.
On April 28, a federal grand jury in North Carolina indicted former FBI Director James Comey on two counts of threatening the President, both of which carry up to ten years in prison. The charges grew out of an Instagram post Mr. Comey shared and quickly deleted last year, showing seashells arranged on a beach to spell 86 47. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told Meet the Press that the indictment rested on more than the post itself, though he could not yet share the rest. It is the second time the Justice Department has tried to indict Mr. Comey. The first attempt was thrown out in November because the prosecutor who secured the indictment had been unlawfully appointed. Federal prosecutors also added an officer-assault charge this week against the suspect accused in the attempted assassination of President Trump at last weekend's White House Correspondents' Dinner, and a new U.S. intelligence assessment reported by Reuters on May 6 concluded that the Iran war may have motivated the shooter.
Whatever one thinks of any of these decisions on the merits, the cumulative picture is what bears watching. A nation whose largest non-military department has just emerged from its longest funding lapse, whose voting maps are being redrawn under judicial deadline, whose abortion law shifts again on appellate timing, whose Justice Department is prosecuting a former FBI director for a deleted social media post, and whose President was the target of an assassination attempt now connected to a foreign war, is a nation under institutional strain. Strain is not collapse. But it is also not health. Christians ought to pray for those in authority, not because the authorities deserve it, but because the Lord commands it, and because the only nation whose foundation is sure is the city whose builder and maker is God.
"I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life."
"For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God."
CBS News — Trump signs bill funding DHS, ending record-breaking 76-day shutdown (May 1, 2026) NPR — DOJ indicts former FBI director James Comey for a second time (April 29, 2026) Reuters — U.S. adds officer-assault charge against suspect in Trump assassination attempt (May 5, 2026) Reuters — Iran conflict may have motivated Trump dinner shooting suspect, U.S. intelligence report finds (May 6, 2026) Associated Press — South Carolina joins Southern redistricting push after U.S. Supreme Court ruling on minority districts (May 6, 2026)
6. The Architecture of Permission: GUARD Act, Kochava, and a New Counterterrorism Strategy
Three separate developments this week belong to one larger pattern. On April 30, the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously advanced the GUARD Act, the boldest federal proposal yet to regulate American access to artificial intelligence. The bill, sponsored by Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri with bipartisan support from Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, would require any American adult to upload a government identification, submit a facial scan, or provide financial records before being permitted to access a generative AI chatbot. The framing is child safety. The reach is far broader. There is no parental opt-in for minors and no clear appeals process for users mistakenly flagged as underage. The bill also includes a provision allowing federal AI rules to override conflicting state laws. A homework helper, a Bible study assistant, a customer service bot for a utility, a translation tool for a non-English speaker, and the most advanced AI models all sit behind the same identification gate.
On May 4, the Federal Trade Commission announced a proposed settlement with the data broker Kochava and its subsidiary, prohibiting them from selling or sharing sensitive location data without affirmative express consent. The agency said the data could trace movements of hundreds of millions of mobile devices to places of worship, shelters, clinics, and other sensitive locations. This is a rare piece of restraint in the surveillance economy. It is also a confirmation that the surveillance was real. Most readers carry the same kind of phone, with the same kind of apps, that fed those data sets in the first place. This also only applies to that one company and not the myriad of others collecting the same data. The control system is not only built by governments. It is also built by phones, apps, brokers, advertisers, and convenience.
On May 6, President Trump signed a new United States Counterterrorism Strategy focused on hemispheric threats, cartels, jihadist movements, state sponsors, and domestic violent extremist categories. Real violence justifies real response. The concern is that moments of fear often become moments of expansion, when tools built for foreign enemies, cartels, or terrorists begin to shape ordinary domestic life in ways that are difficult to unwind. The 2027 driver-monitoring mandate we covered three weeks ago and the AI kill switch we covered two weeks ago belong to the same family. So does a national identification gate at the entrance of every chatbot. So does a strategy document that quietly enlarges the categories of people whom the state may treat as threats.
A Christian response is not panic. The Christian response is to remember whose face we already bear, and whose name is already written on us, and to pray for the kind of wisdom and political voice that can keep these laws from sweeping past their stated purposes. Comment on the bills. Tell your senators. Disciple your children to live without fear in a world increasingly engineered to identify them, and to remember the Lord who searches the heart with mercy and not surveillance.
"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them."
"Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!"
"They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads."
International Business Times — What is GUARD Act? New bill would require Americans to submit ID or face scan to use AI chatbots (May 5, 2026) Federal Trade Commission — FTC to ban Kochava and subsidiary from selling sensitive location data (May 4, 2026) Reuters — Trump signs new counterterrorism strategy that focuses on hemispheric threats (May 6, 2026) ID Tech — ID Tech Digest: May 4, 2026
7. The President and the Pope
On Tuesday, May 5, Pope Leo XIV, the first American pope, said publicly that he hoped to be heard for the value of the Gospel he preached and not silenced for the policy positions of any one government. The remark came in response to renewed criticism from President Trump, who attacked the pope earlier in the week on Truth Social as weak on crime and terrible for foreign policy, citing the pope's position against the war with Iran. Supreme Knight Patrick Kelly of the Knights of Columbus defended the pope, saying his calls for peace, dialogue, and restraint were not political talking points but reflections of the Gospel itself. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is reportedly planning a fence-mending visit to the Vatican this week.
This has been a slow-developing story for several weeks. In April, the President posted an AI image of himself robed and healing a sick figure in apparent Christ-like imagery, a post he later said was meant to depict him as a Red Cross worker. He followed that with another AI image showing himself embraced by Jesus before an American flag, captioned with the line that God might be playing his Trump card. Conservatives, including Marjorie Taylor Greene, Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and Riley Gaines, called the imagery blasphemous. Then came the gold statue at Doral. Now comes the public attack on the pope.
We do not write this to settle anyone's view of the papacy. Sims Corner Church holds, with the Reformers and the early Baptists, that no man on earth is the head of Christ's church, and that the pope is not exempted from that. But it is one thing to disagree with Roman Catholic doctrine, which we do plainly. It is another thing entirely to watch a sitting president attack the bishop of the largest Christian communion in the world for preaching peace, and to do so while posting AI images of himself in messianic poses. The two patterns belong to the same posture. A man who imagines himself as Christ will eventually find every other Christian voice in his way. The Christian response is not to pick a political side as our first priority. The Christian response is to refuse to bow to any image, in gold, in code, or in office, and to keep saying clearly that the throne is occupied by the Lord Jesus Christ, who is not running for anything and will reign as king from Jerusalem in the millennium.
"You shall not make for yourself a carved image... You shall not bow down to them or serve them."
"He does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand."
"On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords."
GoLocal Prov — 5 Big News Stories Overnight: Wednesday, May 6, 2026 The Hill — Trump posts AI image of being embraced by Jesus Christ amid criticism (April 15, 2026)
8. A Country in Drought
While the cameras pointed at the Persian Gulf, much of the United States was quietly running out of water. As of April 29, the U.S. Drought Monitor reports that fifty-one and a half percent of the United States and Puerto Rico, and sixty-one and seven-tenths percent of the Lower forty-eight states, are in drought. The Southeast has just recorded its largest area of severe-or-worse drought since the U.S. Drought Monitor began in the year 2000. Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina set record dry conditions for the September 2025 through March 2026 period, records that stretch back to 1895. The Mid-Atlantic and the High Plains worsened again this past week. Central and East Texas remain in severe to extreme drought, with parts of South Texas seeing reservoirs at single-digit percentages of capacity.
In the West the picture is no kinder. Snowpack across the Colorado River Basin, the Rio Grande Basin, the Pacific Northwest, and the Sierra Nevada is critically low. Thankfully the snow is falling in Colorado today! The record-shattering March heat wave caused peak snowmelt to arrive twenty-one to thirty-four days ahead of schedule. That means the rivers ran high in April and will fall sharply in June, July, and August, exactly when farmers, ranchers, and municipal water systems need them most. Agricultural losses across Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas from 2020 through 2024 already total 23.6 billion dollars before 2025 and 2026 numbers are tallied. The Edwards Aquifer in Texas dropped below stage 5 critical thresholds last May and has not fully recovered.
This is not a sensational item. Drought does not announce itself like a missile. It announces itself like a forgotten ache. Crops shrink. Grass stays dormant and dies. Cattle thin. Water bills rise. Wells deepen. Whole regions lose, year by year, the small abundance that once made them comfortable. The Lord has shaken the heavens and the earth before, and the prophet Haggai says He will do it again. He has also given us, in His mercy, the earlier prophets who warned that drought is sometimes a summons to repent before it is anything else. Pray for rain. Steward water. Help your neighbor's garden. Remember the farmers in your church. Remember that the Lord owns the rain.
"O LORD... act for your name's sake. Our backslidings are many; we have sinned against you. O you hope of Israel, its savior in time of trouble, why should you be like a stranger in the land?"
"Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land."
"He gives rain on the earth and sends waters on the fields."
Drought.gov — National Current Conditions (April 29, 2026) U.S. Drought Monitor — National Drought Summary (April 28, 2026)
9. A Chain of Earthquakes Around the Western Pacific
The earth itself contributed its own news this week. On Friday, May 1, a magnitude 5.2 earthquake struck western Nevada and was felt across Reno, Lake Tahoe, and northern California. On Saturday, May 2, a magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck near Wakayama, Japan, with a Japanese agency later registering the shock at magnitude 6.0. On Monday, May 4, a magnitude 6.0 earthquake struck Eastern Samar in the Philippines at a depth of seventy-three kilometers, with seventeen aftershocks logged within hours. The same day brought a magnitude 5.7 tremor near Oaxaca, Mexico, that activated alarms in Mexico City and prompted evacuations, though no deaths or major damage were reported. On Tuesday, May 5, a magnitude 5.8 quake hit Tambolaka, Indonesia, and another 5.8 hit east of Pauanui, New Zealand. April 30 had already produced a magnitude 5.7 off Lorengau, Papua New Guinea. May 1 brought a 5.8 east of Yilan, Taiwan. None of these events on their own caused mass casualties or wide damage. Together they form the kind of clustered seismic week that the geological community sometimes flags and ordinary readers usually miss.
Scripture does not promise that every earthquake is a sign. It also does not promise that no earthquake is. The Lord Jesus Christ said earthquakes would be among the things that happen along the way, part of the beginning of sorrows. The right posture toward a seismic week is neither sensationalism nor dismissal. It is the calm understanding that the ground beneath us is not quite as solid as our houses suggest, and that the Lord who set the foundations of the earth will one day shake them once more, and what cannot be shaken will remain.
"Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains."
"Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens... in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain."
USGS — Earthquake Hazards Program: M6+ in 2026 VolcanoDiscovery — M6.0 earthquake, Eastern Samar, Philippines (May 4, 2026) Reuters — Earthquake hits southern Mexico, no victims reported (May 4, 2026) San Francisco Chronicle — Magnitude 5.2 earthquake hits Nevada, felt across Northern California (May 2, 2026)
10. The Persecuted Church
This week marked one year since a suicide bomber walked into Mar Elias Church in Damascus and killed at least twenty-five worshippers in the deadliest church attack in the Syrian capital in years. Syrian believers asked Open Doors this week to share the testimony of those who survived. One woman said simply that she knew God would not forsake them. The same week, Open Doors reported that a Christian teenage girl in Pakistan, abducted and forced into a so-called marriage, has now been ordered by the courts to remain with her abductor. In Mali, a fresh wave of violence has driven Christian families from villages they have known for generations. Open Doors' 2026 World Watch List, released in January, counted three hundred and eighty-eight million Christians worldwide exposed to persecution at high or extreme levels, eight million more than last year and a record number. Nigeria recorded three thousand four hundred and ninety believers killed for their faith in the reporting period, about seventy percent of the global total.
We name these things because the same Lord who spoke of wars, ceasefires, and shaken heavens also said, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake. He told His disciples plainly that they would be hated by all nations for His name's sake. The American church has the privilege of free worship and the corresponding duty of remembering those who do not. We pray for the Syrian sister carrying her grief into a second year. We pray for the Pakistani teenager whose courts have failed her. We pray for the Christians of Mali, Nigeria, North Korea, China, Iran, and Eritrea. And we pray that our own faith would not become so soft, in the comfort of a country still mostly free, that we would be unable to recognize Christ in His suffering people abroad.
"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
"Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body."
Open Doors — 'I knew God wouldn't forsake us': fear and faith one year after Damascus church bombing (April 30, 2026) Open Doors — In Pakistan, Christian teen forced to stay with 'husband' who abducted her (May 5, 2026) Vatican News — Open Doors: number of Christians persecuted worldwide rises to 388 million (January 15, 2026)
Watch and Pray
Pray for the Strait of Hormuz. Pray for the mariners stranded on both sides, for the Indian workers wounded at Fujairah, for the South Korean crew whose ship caught fire, and for restraint in Tehran and in Washington. Ask the Lord to give President Trump the wisdom to keep choosing the cautious path, and to give Iran's leaders a willingness to settle without further blood. Ask the Prince of Peace to do what no operation called Freedom can do.
"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given... and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."
Pray for Gaza. For the families who buried a fifteen-year-old this week, for the family of the police colonel killed today, and for every other family hidden behind those numbers. Pray for the hostage families still waiting. Pray that the disarmament framework or some better one would be received in good faith on both sides, that the agreed aid trucks would actually reach the agreed destinations, and that mercy would interrupt the next round of strikes before it begins.
"The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness."
Pray for the people of Iran in the third month of the internet blackout. For the workers without invoices, the families without contact, the underground believers without their encrypted messaging, and the converts whose only Bibles are the ones they have already memorized. Pray that the Lord would run His Word through a country that has shut its windows, as He has done before.
"Pray for us, that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored."
Pray for Lebanon. For the twelve villages told to evacuate, for displaced Christian families, for the Christians who have welcomed Muslim neighbors into their homes, and for the Israeli airmen and Lebanese civilians whose names will appear in next week's news if the talk of a short campaign turns into one.
"Peace be within your walls and security within your towers!' For my brothers and companions' sake I will say, 'Peace be within you!'"
Pray for our nation as it emerges from the longest agency shutdown in its history, faces the redrawing of its electoral maps, debates the limits of its courts, watches a former FBI director indicted for a deleted social media post, and processes a White House assassination attempt now linked to a foreign war. Pray for the President, for the Justice Department, for federal employees who have just received their first full paycheck in months, and for the integrity of public life.
"Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people."
Pray over the GUARD Act, the Kochava settlement, the new counterterrorism strategy, and the larger architecture of permission rising in our country. Ask the Lord to grant lawmakers a sober view of what age verification tied to government identification will actually do at scale, what a surveillance economy does to ordinary trust, and what an ever-expanding list of state-defined threats does to liberty of conscience. Ask Him to raise up Christian voices in technology, law, journalism, and parenting who can speak for liberty without losing concern for children. Ask Him to keep us free.
"Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom."
Pray for President Trump and for Pope Leo XIV. Pray that the President would put away every image of himself in messianic dress, gold, code, or otherwise, and bow with the rest of us to the Lord whose throne is fixed forever. Pray that the Pope would be free to preach the Gospel without political reprisal, even where we hold doctrinal disagreement with him. Pray that the watching world would see that the church of Christ is not a constituency.
"Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow."
Pray for rain. Across the Southeast, the High Plains, Texas, the Colorado River Basin, the Rio Grande, the Pacific Northwest, and the Sierra. Pray for farmers and ranchers in our own counties whose pastures are thin again this spring. Pray for the cities that depend on aquifers no one ever sees. Pray for the wisdom to steward the water we still have.
"And Elijah said to Ahab, 'Go up, eat and drink, for there is a sound of the rushing of rain.'"
Pray over the earth itself, the chain of quakes around the western Pacific this week, and the larger pattern of a creation that groans for the day of redemption. Ask the Lord to give us courage that is not anxiety and watchfulness that is not panic, the kind of sober steadiness that the men of Issachar were known for.
"For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now."
Pray for the persecuted church. The believers in Damascus marking one year since the bombing of Mar Elias. The Christian teenager in Pakistan whose courts have failed her. The displaced Christian families of Mali. The brothers and sisters in Nigeria, North Korea, China, Iran, and Eritrea whose names we will not know in this life. Pray that our American comfort would not dull our love for them, and that our prayers would reach where our money and our voices cannot.
"Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body."
Pray for Sims Corner Church and for every gathered assembly of Christ's people this Sunday. Pray that we would teach sound doctrine, sing with understanding, disciple our children, love our neighbors, preach the Gospel, and walk soberly through whatever the news brings. The Lord is not surprised by any of this. He has not lost the throne. And He is coming back.
"He who testifies to these things says, 'Surely I am coming soon.' Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!"
Maranatha, — Sims Corner Church
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.