Today’s Word from Pastor Jim…
“Cast all your anxiety on God, for God cares about you.” I Peter 5:7
It is an anxious time. We are bored. We are concerned about the days and years ahead. We are caged animals, longing for release from this isolation. We so desire to see our friends, to break bread together, to worship side by side, to hold new babies, to make plans for tomorrow.
It is an anxious time. Very little is in our control, and it tests our patience and our sanity. May we draw perspective and hope from history.
On May 10th 1941, the German Luftwaffe sent waves of bombers across the English Channel toward London. More than 500 bombers took part in this act of terror, targeting a civilian population. When the “longest night” was over, the Luftwaffe had dropped seven hundred tons of explosives on London. It is estimated that 1,500 civilians lost their lives that night. The will of the United Kingdom to carry on the fight against the Axis powers was nearly broken.
Hope seemed to be lost. One month later, with the terror of May 10th fresh in their minds, a weary nation huddled around radios to hear an address by their Prime Minister. France was preparing to surrender. The English people were afraid; most had lost hope. It seemed impossible that any country could stand against the German war machine.
Winston Churchill took to the airwaves on the 14th day of June saying, “the Battle of France is over… the Battle of Britain is about to begin.”
Churchill never lost hope. He was realistic about the dangers and challenges that England now faced. He sought to inspire hope, and to steel the United Kingdom for the days and years that were to follow.
“Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island, or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’”
It would be nonsense to compare our current suffering with the longest night and the darkest days of World War II. My prayer is that we might see this time of disruption for what it is. It is a present danger, it is an annoying inconvenience, it has taken so many lives and spared no one from grief and loss. But it is nothing more than a season in our lives. It will be a brief chapter in the history of our country, and in our human story.
Let me share a few more Churchill quotes to lift you up and make you smile on this Tuesday in April, 2020:
“If you are going through hell, keep going.”
“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”
“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”
My friends, we are one day closer to the end of this crisis. Cast all of our anxieties on God, God cares about you!
Much love,
Pastor Jim
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