| Topic: |
Religions > Bible |
| User: |
"Melchizedek" |
| Date: |
28 May 2007 09:14:41 AM |
| Object: |
Faith Under Fire |
Faith Under Fire
Related Audio/Video Downloads
http://breakpoint.org/media/dkContent/6514/052807_BP.mp3
Where Is God in Wartime?
Where is God amidst the horrors of war? How do soldiers keep their faith
in God's goodness amidst the suffering and slaughter of battle?
American soldiers and sailors, airmen and Marines have asked questions
like these ever since the War for Independence. The questions occupy their
thoughts and find their way from faraway battlefields into letters to
loved ones.
Journalist Andrew Carroll has collected many of these letters in a book
entitled Grace Under Fire: Letters of Faith in Times of War. Among them is
a note from Private Walter Bromwich, who questioned God's role in the
slaughter of World War I.
"How can there be fairness in one man being maimed for life, suffering
agonies, and another killed instantaneously, while I get out of it safe?"
Bromwich asked his pastor back in Pennsylvania. "What I would like to
believe," Bromwich wrote, "is that God is in this war, not as a spectator,
but backing up everything that is good in us. I don't know whether God
goes forth with armies, but I do know that He is in lots of our men or
they would not do what they do."
Other soldiers worried about their public witness more than their personal
safety. In 1943, Private First Class William Kiessel, who was about to
take part in the invasion into France, wrote to friends that he did not
want prayer for his safety, because "safety isn't the ultimate goal. True
exemplary conduct is." And he added, "What is important is that whatever
does happen to me I will do absolutely nothing that will shame my
character or my God."
Where is God in the midst of war? Lieutenant Colonel Scott Barnes, a
doctor who treated hundreds of wounded patients in Iraq, offered an answer
to that question in an email home to family and friends.
"Some of my colleagues have wondered out loud," he wrote, "how there can
be a God with all of this suffering. I just remind them that He might just
be right in some of our hands and working right beside us.
"Where is God? He is in the O.R. guiding the hands of the surgeons, He is
in the will of the sergeants helping organize a blood drive as only they
can, He is in the hearts of the soldiers who immediately rolled up their
sleeves to give what they had to save a dying brother whom they don't even
know"-or even a captured enemy.
Letters like these renewed Carroll's own faith in God. "They showed me
that even in the bleakest of circumstances, with God's help, we can
overcome all adversity," Carroll writes. "Through Him, we can endure any
hardship. Because of Him, we are never alone."
Where is Christ during the horrors of war today? He's on the Cross.
On this day, Memorial Day, I want to send a personal message to our
servicemen around the world: We at home are deeply grateful to you and we
are proud of your service to our nation and our God as you defend the
innocent. And I encourage you to remember the words found in Deuteronomy:
"Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified . . . for the
Lord your God goes with you, he will never leave you nor forsake you."
May God bless and keep you, and protect you and your families.
By Chuck Colson
5/28/2007
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please forward today's BreakPoint to your friends and family members
serving in the military, and let them know their service is appreciated!
For Further Reading and Information
Visit "America Supports You" to send gifts or messages of thanks to
members of the armed forces.
Visit the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association's "Operation Bless Our
Troops" to offer prayer, encouragement, and care packages to your friends
or family serving in the military.
Tom McFeely, "A Soldier's Sacrifice," National Catholic Register, 27 May
2007.
BreakPoint Commentary No. 060529, "The Greatest Love: Memorial Day
Memories."
BreakPoint Commentary No. 050530, "Soldiering Justly: Fighting Freedom's
Battles."
BreakPoint Commentary No. 040531, "A Soldier's Valor: Helping and Healing
in Iraq."
-- +Sig+
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"Do not give dogs what is holy; and do not throw your
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But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there
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.. Maranatha!
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