At the risk of inviting homeland security to my office – would it be weird to ask for prayer for Kim Jong-Un?

I’ll admit, my knowledge on the internal working affairs of North Korea is between minimal and non-existent.  I have no idea how to categorize relations between North and South Korea as anything other than ‘intense’.  And the only lessons I’ve ever had on the effects of the Korean War came from watching ‘Taegukgi’ – a fictional film introducing me to the depth of war-torn family bonds, Korean cinematography, and Won Bin’s effect on 15-year-old Asian girls.  Oh, and I’m not Korean.  That probably doesn’t help.

Or maybe it does.  Maybe my ignorance is just what’s needed in all this knowledgeable banter and opinion that’s currently going on in the news.  It seems like with so much deep-seated hatred, fear and anger over Kim Jong Il and his horrendous crimes against humanity, the world has forgotten that it knows relatively little about his successor, or at least that’s the gist I’m getting from all these news reports.  It seems that the world is so focused on what he’ll do, and what this means for them, that they’ve forgotten about the person.   He’s a 27-year-old man tasked with leading 24 million people, with an almost universally hated father. And in a country where we pride ourselves in an ‘innocent until proven guilty’ mentality, aren’t we jumping the gun here?

OK, maybe I’m jumping the gun here a bit.  Regardless of whether he turns out to be better, worse, or exactly the same as his father, I’d still like to think that just as we pray for our own leaders to have spiritual wisdom and to be responsible leaders, so we can pray for other leaders as well.  God’s influence doesn’t influence only believers.  Our God is a God who brought light from heaven to transform a violent antagonist of the church into one of its greatest missionaries (Paul).  This is a God who galvanized a weak-willed and fleeing prophet into action via a fish (Jonah). And this is a God who took an unbelieving prostitute and gave her a place in His future  son’s blessed lineage (Rahab).  God’s certainly dealt with worse in the past.  And just because a man has an unsavory father for a past and untested waters as a future, should we automatically curtail any possible option of prayer? Is that our duty, and our right?  Obviously we wouldn’t  pray for North Korea’s regime success or that human rights would continue to be violated – but rather, prayers for salvation, wisdom in guiding a people, and an open heart towards governmental, and hopefully spiritual, change.  Aren’t those valid prayers as well?

I realize I may be opening the floodgates here by inviting over 60 years of pain and bitterness from an estimated 80 million people worldwide, in an almost unanimous animosity towards one man.  But I sincerely hope it doesn’t come off that way.  I don’t support the current North Korea government or its past actions.  I do condemn the actions that the former dictator performed, though, some with a fierceness bordering on disgust.  And should his son start WWIII tomorrow, this post may be universally impossible to take with a grain of salt. But my question is not whether Kim Jong Un is a good man or not.  My question is simply whether this man, or any man for that matter, is undeserving of prayer?

Please respond. I really want to know what people think about this – with civility and grace if possible.

For future information on North Korea, we highly recommend LiNK – Liberation in North Korea as both a source of current, up-to-date information and as a means of getting involved via spreading awareness about the situation in North Korea as well as providing aid and  relief for North Korean Refugees.

Please realize that these thoughts do not reflect any official opinion from INHERITANCE magazine, LiNK or any other organization.