Month: May 2020

It’s been a strange week.  A sad week.  One of those weeks where you’re knocked for a loop, start to get up, and something else comes along and gives you a shove before you can get your feet under you.  It’s the kind of week intent on making you say, “Why even bother getting back up?”

 

We’ve been fighting an invisible war for a long time.  A lot longer than this pandemic.  Longer even then the war against injustice.  It’s a battle for the heart, a constant stream of attacks by an enemy who wants to steal our joy.

 

In the middle of all this, I’m left with just this one thought – faith takes courage.  The world is constantly telling you to give up, to loosen your grip on hope.  How can you stop an avalanche of bad news?  On those days, maybe you wonder if you’ll be able to hold on long enough, if your arms will be strong enough to keep you from falling into a pit of despair.

 

I have good news for you – that’s not your job.

 

Weak faith is faith. It might need nourishment and encouragement, but it is faith and that’s something.  Jesus promises to take our minuscule, not-very-impressive faith and do something extraordinary with it (Matthew 17:20).  You see it’s not our faith that moves the mountains – it’s the Mountain Mover who moves mountains.  The part our faith plays is in waiting for God to move it.

 

Without wavering, let us hold tightly to the hope we say we have, for God can be trusted to keep his promise.  Hebrews 10:23

 

Even when the pandemic is over, the war against your heart will continue.  There will be more bad news.  And so you will need courage to go on.  But you must go on.  This is not where you were meant to be.

 

Every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve this victory through our faith. 1 John 5:4

There’s a clear line of sight from the Marine Corps War Memorial to the US Capitol. It’s a stunning statue.  But these bronze warriors are just a symbol of the real men and women who spilled their blood in defense of something greater than themselves, the dream of an America at her best.  Their sacrifice makes them the sentinels of our freedom.

 

There’s been a lot of controversy over freedom lately.  By definition, liberty is freedom from regulation.  And it’s the first thing to come under fire when someone’s behavior doesn’t conform to our standards, when they aren’t doing things the way we think they should.  “You do you” has quickly given way to “you’d better do what I think is best, or else.”  You can see it in every angry attack.

 

While true liberty means freedom from external regulation, that doesn’t mean we should do whatever we want.  Just because you’re allowed to do anything doesn’t mean everything you do is good (1 Corinthians 10:23).  So often we’re too focused on protecting our own self-interests to pay much attention to how our actions impact others.  And that’s when we do all kinds of harm, whether intentionally or not.  It’s a sobering realization that the greater my individual freedom, the greater my responsibility to protect others from my selfishness.

 

I think we’ve forgotten something about freedom.  When we protect the freedoms of others, we’re also protecting our own.  When we stand up for those whose choices don’t match our own, we’re building a bulwark against the day when it’s our choices that come under fire.  Our ability to choose to exercise or restrain our rights, as a result of our own free will, is the greatest measure of our liberty.

 

In the time to come, I hope we will not find that we have given away our liberties too easily.  To do so is to dishonor those who gave up their lives in our defense.  But it also does them no honor to use freedom as an excuse for lawlessness (1 Peter 2:16).  The question is always, what do we do with the freedom that others have purchased on our behalf?

 

If my love for myself is greater than my love for my neighbor, then liberty will always be at risk. But where there are those who are willing to lay down their lives for others, true freedom is possible.

 

My uncle is among those who laid down his life.  He was killed in Vietnam, long before I was born.  I have no idea what he would say about our current situation.  But I believe his sacrifice demands an account – do I love others whenever I can to the best of my ability?

 

It’s really love that matters in the end.  Love that is not so much focused on being right or having all the answers, but love that seeks the best interests of others.  Love like that will show us the way forward.

 

Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor.  1 Corinthians 10:24 ESV