There will be no more gloom for those in distress. The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death, a light has dawned.
(From Is 9:1&2)

Distress. The word comes from the Old French verb destrecier, meaning ‘to restrain, constrain, put in straits, or afflict.’ It’s linked, too, to the Medieval Latin distringō, which means to ‘pull asunder, stretch out.’

The Iranian people – and Iranian believers in particular – surely know the meaning of the word (it is transcribed from Farsi as parishani) not only by its dictionary definition, but in everyday experience. While the leaders of both America and Iran convince themselves they have the upper hand in the conflict, real people are suffering. Poverty and hardship are increasingly stalking the streets, with between one and two million people having lost their jobs following the destruction of huge petrochemical plants and countless other sites.

But just as God was not absent from the chaos that existed before Creation, so He is not absent from the distress of the Iranian people. Into the blasted bomb sites and the blistering weariness of this scenario, Jesus’s church is hard at work, sacrificially bringing near the Kingdom of God: His arms, His legs, His mouth. May He bring His light to those living in the shadow of death, and set them free from the straits that they are in and being crushed by. He broods over them, and even now, new life emerges.

I love these testimonies sent top someone who has close contact with the Iranian church:

Hi brother,
Today I finally had internet access and really wanted to send you this message—it will make you happy. Do you remember the friend I told you about a few months ago, before the war? You encouraged me to share the gospel with him. A few days ago, he invited me for coffee and asked, “Why are you different from others in our neighbourhood?” That opened the door, and I shared with him about Jesus. The next day, I brought him a Bible and asked if he wanted to believe in Jesus. He said yes. With unbelievable passion, joy, and excitement, he gave his life to Jesus.

A few days after this brother came to Jesus, I went to a relative’s shop where a lady works. As we were talking, she began sharing about her past—how she lost her family and is now living alone. She kept saying that everything was God’s fault and that He had destroyed her life. My husband and I gently began to share with her about the true God—the loving Father, a real and caring Father. While I was talking with her, my husband drove back home to grab a Bible and came back. We gave her a Bible, and she has started reading it. Today, after a few days, I went back to the shop and saw that she was reading the Bible and asking very thoughtful questions.

I believe, and I’m praying, that soon she will give her heart to Jesus.

See too, this important and precious glimpse of the Iranian church in action, in this article from Christianity Today. And this brief but beautiful testimony from a Muslim woman who day by day kept attending an empty church in order to tell Jesus that He was not the Son of God – only to find that He is! Good for her for being so persistent – and praise the Lord for being the God who reaches out.

It has frequently been noted that in His mercy, God often sends a wave of revival to a region before great suffering engulfs it. A significant move of the Holy Spirit occurred in the early 1970s in Cambodia, for instance, just before Pol Pot’s murderous Khmer Rouge regime. And when the Boxer Revolution (1899-1901) in China (See this article from First Things. ) ‘pulled asunder’ believers and cut the ‘internet cables’ of its day, Christians around the world grieved, prayed and worried for the seed of faith in China; surely it would die?

But it did not; the mouth of the Lord had spoken life in Jesus’ name, and the church proved astonishingly resilient.

Ethiopia and East Timor are amongst other notable examples of a great ingathering that brought many into the Kingdom, and strengthened believers to endure during the trials that befell their nation shortly afterwards.

Pray for all those who are reaching out, often at great risk to themselves, to bring the love of God the people of Iran.

Open eyes, Lord God. Pour out Your Spirit and do Your work. Your purity, Your power among the people and churches of Iran. Gather multitudes into Your Kingdom in every place. Amen.

Enjoy these very brief excerpts of worship in Farsi, to remind us of the people we are praying for.

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Photo by Yan Bin Pang on Unsplash