One reporter called it “the stuff of sporting legend.” Another called it “borderline surreal.” A director of sports medicine called it “a story that’s just beyond belief.”

They were describing the news that Tiger Woods might play in tomorrow’s Masters Tournament less than fourteen months after a car accident that nearly led to the amputation of his right leg. Woods ended the speculation with his announcement yesterday, “As of right now I feel like I am going to play.” More than thirty-five thousand fans were on the grounds at Augusta National on Monday hoping to get a glimpse of his practice round, and his fellow professionals were more than excited to see him.

Tiger Woods has eighty-two PGA Tour wins, tied with Sam Snead for the most in history. In 2001, he became the first golfer ever to hold all four professional major championships at the same time. He was the youngest Masters champion ever and is the career money list leader.

At age forty-six, Woods is fourteen years older than the average age for a major golf champion. Only two players in the last fifty-four years were his age or older when they won a Grand Slam title. And neither was attempting to come back from a life-threatening accident.

Why would Woods even consider doing this?

The question is actually relevant not just for him but for us all.

Our “collective worship of work”

Carolyn Chen is co-director of the Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion at UC Berkeley. In a recent article for the Atlantic, she discusses one of the most fascinating and troubling trends in American culture: our “collective worship of work.”

She cites a McKinsey report that 70 percent of employees said their sense of purpose is defined by their work. In her view, the “invisible religion of work” has “become an unassailable part of our culture.”

According to Chen, “At a time when religious-affiliation rates are the lowest they’ve been in the past seventy-three years, we worship work—meaning we sacrifice for and surrender to it—because it gives us identity, belonging, and meaning, not to mention that it puts food on our tables” (her emphasis).

In her view, “houses of worship” that can compete with the worship of work “would have to claim our time, energy, and devotion like work does. We would have to sacrifice and submit to their demands, as we do for work. We would have to build communities of belonging, together seeking meaning and purpose outside of our productive labor.”

Chen adds that such “houses of worship needn’t be only religious ones; they could also be our co-ops, neighborhoods, unions, reading groups, or political clubs.” The goal would be to build “civic organizations that can help us visualize human flourishing that rises above a company’s bottom line.”

“I am not who I think I am”

I do not know Tiger Woods personally (though I have watched him play at the Masters in person and am in awe of his talent). As a result, I cannot say with any certainty what is motivating his possible return to golf. But I do believe his story is a parable of a culture that defines who we are by what we do.

A man stood on a busy street corner and asked a thousand people as they went by, “Who are you?”

Without exception, every person who responded answered by describing their job: “I’m a doctor,” or “I’m a teacher,” or “I’m a pastor.”

A counselor once explained our culture’s sense of self this way: “I am not who I think I am. I am not who you think I am. I am who I think you think I am.”

And I think you think I am what I do.

By contrast, the Bible defines our identity not by what we do but by Whose we are. We are told that “to all who did receive [Jesus], who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12). If our identity is our unchanging essence, this is our identity as Christians. Everything else about us can change, but this cannot. Once we become the children of God, we are a “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17). We will forever be the children of our Father in heaven.

A penetrating life question

How can Christians convince secularized people to choose God’s grace over our cultural worship of work?

We will need to show our skeptical society that our Father’s way is better than their way. To do this, as Chen notes, we will need to “sacrifice and submit” to God’s claim on “our time, energy, and devotion.”

In other words, we desperately need to reject the Western cultural division between the sacred and the secular, Sunday and Monday, religion and the “real world.” We need to adopt the biblical call to holistic faith that submits our lives as a “living sacrifice” to God every day (Romans 12:1). We need to vacate the throne and enthrone the one true King (Matthew 6:33) by being “filled with the Spirit” every day (Ephesians 5:18).

Then the Spirit can empower and direct us to, in Chen’s words, “build communities of belonging, together seeking meaning and purpose.”

Author James Clear recently asked a penetrating question: “If someone took control of your life tomorrow, what’s the first thing they would change?”

Let’s amend his question: “If God took control of your life tomorrow, what’s the first thing he would change?”

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Graphic images from Bucha, Ukraine, are shocking the world. According to CNN, they show the bodies of at least twenty dead men in the street, some of whom had their arms bound behind their back. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, “This is genocide.” President Biden called for Vladimir Putin to be tried for war crimes.

NATO’s chief described the reports as “horrific” and said they represent “a brutality against civilians we haven’t seen in Europe in decades.” He also noted that the International Criminal Court has opened an investigation into potential war crimes in Ukraine so that “those responsible are held accountable.”

The fact that you and I are following this war so closely is part of what makes it “our first true world war,” in the opinion of New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. Anyone with a smartphone—and that’s nearly half the planet’s population, according to Friedman—can watch what is happening in Ukraine and express their opinions globally through social media.

Friedman also reports that Ukraine’s government has raised more than $70 million worth of cryptocurrency after appealing on social media for donations and that cyberwarriors are attacking Russia’s government, news, and corporate websites. He calls this conflict “World War Wired.”

America’s states are becoming “radically different”

Americans are joining the world in uniting against Russia’s atrocities in Ukraine at the same time we are witnessing a deepening chasm of division at home.

The Senate Judiciary Committee deadlocked yesterday, with all eleven Democrats supporting Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination to the Supreme Court and all eleven Republicans opposed. And a wave of legislation is making American states “not only a little different but radically different,” according to a UCLA law professor.

For example, when Idaho proposed a new ban on abortions, nearby Oregon approved $15 million to help cover the abortion expenses of out-of-state patients. When the governor of Texas ordered state agencies to investigate parents for child abuse if they provide certain medical treatments to their transgender children, lawmakers in California proposed a law making their state a refuge for transgender youths and their families.

Only two states—Minnesota and Virginia—have legislative chambers split between political parties. As more state governments are controlled by single parties, partisanship is deepening. If the Supreme Court rolls back federal abortion rights, we are likely to see a sharp escalation in political battles over abortion on the state level and between states.

Arabs and Jews working together in Israel

A common crisis can be a powerful force for unity and community.

According to President Biden, NATO has “never been more united” in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As extremist violence in Israel has escalated recently, Arabs and Jews are working together in unprecedented ways to forge a common future.

Ranchers from as far away as Wyoming gathered in South Dakota to pray for rain in the face of ongoing drought and its devastating consequences. Christianity Today reports that “pastors and churches across Ukraine are working to bring people the bread they need to feed their bodies and the bread they need for their souls.”

Poland and Romania have launched programs to help Ukrainian refugees integrate by providing housing, jobs, schooling, and personal kindness. Meanwhile, according to the Associated Press, “members of faith communities have been leading the charge to welcome the displaced” in America.

Why Jesus is praying for you right now

You may know that “Christ Jesus . . . is interceding for us” right now (Romans 8:34; cf. Hebrews 7:25). But do you know the subject of Jesus’ prayers for us?

The night before he was crucified, our Savior prayed “for those who will believe in me through [his disciples’] word” (John 17:20). That’s you and me. To this end: “That they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they may also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (v. 21).

Until we are as “one” as the Father and the Son, I believe the Son will continue praying to the Father for our unity “so that the world may believe” that the Father sent the Son. And I believe he wants us to join him in such intercession.

In a fragmented and war-torn world, our unity can be a compelling witness. Our community empowered by compassion can change the world one hurting soul at a time. And our unified intercession can empower our unified ministry in supernatural ways.

Baylor students pray for revival

The first Christians prayed together for God to grant them boldness to continue speaking his word (Acts 4:29). As a result, “when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness” (v. 31).

Paul asked the Thessalonians to “pray for us, that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored” (2 Thessalonians 3:1). And he asked the Ephesians to pray for him “that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel” (Ephesians 6:19).

Are you praying for your fellow Christians to be so empowered? Are you asking your fellow Christians to pray the same for you?

Thousands of Baylor University students, joined by friends from other schools up to one hundred miles away, gathered recently at their football stadium for seventy-two hours to pray for revival and spiritual renewal. Their forty-foot by eighty-foot prayer tent was filled at times by standing-room-only crowds.

According to Charles Ramsey, director of campus ministries and associate chaplain at Baylor, “There were times when it was like a high-level festival of celebration. Other times, it was absolutely silent in the tent as students read Scripture and quietly prayed.”

How will you join them today?

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Denzel Washington spoke at pastor T. D. Jakes’ International Leadership Summit last Saturday, where he explained his reaction when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Academy Awards last week. Washington went immediately to speak with Smith, a decision he explained to the group: “I don’t know all the ins and outs of this situation, but I know the only solution was prayer, the way I saw it, the way I see it.”

In other headline news, North Carolina defeated Duke last Saturday in what is being called a “game for the ages” and will play Kansas in tonight’s NCAA men’s basketball championship. When Hubert Davis, North Carolina’s first-year coach, was introduced last April, he told a press conference that his faith “is the most important thing to me. My faith and foundation is firmly in my relationship with Jesus. It just is.”

By contrast, this Atlantic headline caught my eye: “Why People Are Acting So Weird.” The writer documents a variety of ways people are acting more rudely and violently and points to heightened stress, the increased use of alcohol and drugs, and isolation enforced by the pandemic.

Today’s news offers tragic examples: at least six people were killed and at least twelve were wounded in a shooting yesterday morning in Sacramento, California. A man was shot to death in Atlanta. And one person was killed and at least eleven people were hospitalized Saturday night after a shooting incident at a concert in Dallas.

In light of all the bad news, how are Americans doing? In a recent Gallup poll, only 17 percent of respondents said they were satisfied with the direction of the country. However, 85 percent were satisfied with their own lives.

This disparity highlights the point I want to make today.

The challenge of “compassion fatigue”

Denzel Washington and Hubert Davis are Christians who act on their faith when the opportunity arises. By contrast, the perennial temptation in Western culture is to keep our personal lives and our public lives separate.

This temptation extends not only to our actions but also to our intercession. “Compassion fatigue” is a real challenge in these hard days.

For example, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appeared on screen last night at the Grammy Awards. His speech began: “The war. What’s more opposite than music.” In reference to the music industry’s biggest night, he said, “Our musicians wear body armor instead of tuxedos. They sing to the wounded in hospitals.”

When you see the daily reports about the ongoing tragedy in Ukraine, are you praying with the same passion you did a month ago?

Here’s another example: Ramadan began last Friday. There are more than two billion Muslims in the world, each of whom rejects the divinity of Jesus and is therefore without true hope of eternal life (cf. Romans 8:9). Does this fact weigh on your heart today?

By contrast, our Father loves each of us as if there were only one of us, Muslims included. And he is working in the Muslim world in ways we have not seen in Islamic history.

A sheikh leading other sheikhs to Christ

My friend Tom Doyle has been ministering in the Middle East for many years. His marvelous book, Dreams and Visions: Is Jesus Awakening the Muslim World? tells story after story of ways God is “awakening” the Muslim world by his Spirit.

Over the weekend, I read a companion book, David Garrison’s A Wind in the House of Islam: How God is drawing Muslims around the world to faith in Jesus Christ. Garrison reinforces Tom’s point by documenting statistically the fact that “Muslim movements to Jesus Christ are taking place in numbers we’ve never seen before.” He reports on nine different geographical regions in the Muslim world, identifying eighty-two movements to Christ in “what appears to be a historic hinge moment in the spread of the gospel across the Muslim world.”

Here’s just one example: Sheikh Hakim is a hafez, which means he has memorized the Qur’an. He told Garrison, “If someone said that Jesus was God, we would kill him. When I was a Muslim, I burned churches for Islam.”

He was an overseer of four mosques and was training three hundred Islamic teachers when an African evangelist gave him a New Testament in Arabic. “That night Isa [Jesus] came to me in a dream,” he says. He saw himself chopping down a mosque’s minaret. When he told the evangelist, “He smiled and explained to me, ‘You are going to win many sheikhs to the Lord.’”

When Hakim came to faith in Christ, he lost his job and his farm, and his father tried to murder him. Today he moves from town to town because there are always some trying to kill him. He has since led four hundred Muslim sheikhs to Christ, more than three hundred of whom have already been baptized.

Three ways to pray today

I invite you to join me in three prayer requests today.

First, ask God to give you his heart for our hurting world so that you can pray with passionate compassion.

Second, pray each day during the month of Ramadan (April 2–May 1) for millions of Muslims to come to faith in Jesus and for God to protect Ukraine, end this war, and redeem this tragedy.

Third, pray for the Spirit to move in power in our churches and broken culture. We have never needed a spiritual awakening more than we need a transformative movement of God today.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on this day in 1968. He died knowing that the movement for racial justice he led would ultimately triumph. While we still have far to go, we can claim his testimony as our own today: “I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.”

Will you pray for the passion to speak unarmed truth in unconditional love today?

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