Posted on 05/31/2007 4:25:37 PM PDT by Mr. Silverback
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.
There are links to further information at the source document.
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Faith says that God is there. It is far more comforting knowing that this war is not a surprise to God, than it would be to think that God was totally unprepared for this mass of injured and dead.
Honestly, isn’t it more comforting knowing that God was well aware that a child would die?
It means that everything is under control. The opposite would mean that everything is in chaos.
BTTT with much prayer for our military...!!
Prayers for our troops!
Fighting evil is the utmost duty on earth; and its efforts will be justly rewarded.
Evil is here, deal with it.
George S. Patton
Prayer, blood and guts wins wars. Not wussified rules of engagements set up by lawyers and approved by a traitor.
Interesting thought...and yes, it is comforting. Some don’t realize that pain which makes us recoil is often a mere papercut compared to what we’d experience if God was hands-off.
Referring to..."
Referring to...????
It is only those who realize that bad things happening do so only with God’s permission or planning, who also realize that “all things work together for good to those who love God, who are the called according to His purpose...”
The current occupant of the WH.
Excellent commentary!
I couldn’t read that last trasnmission...my decoder ring malfunctioned.
If you’re talking about me, thanks! If not...well, Chuck is pretty darn good.
Aren’t YOU supposed to be on a sabbatical or something?!
Ah. Well, you're a complete moron. Have a nice day.
Seriously, I managed to cut down on my freeping by about half. That'll have to do.
LOL!
The first time I read Art of War I was struck by the statement "Now, all warfare is based on deception" - it's particularly strong and poetic.
It's not uncommon in philosophy - especially in eastern thought where single sentence observations are normal - to follow a strong statement backwards: in other words, what are the sentences before "All warfare is based on deception"?
I came to believe the full statement was "The Field of Time is based on conflict. All life is root in warfare. All battles should be fought utilizing deception."
That is to say, God created the Universe. The simplest description of the Universe as a whole is "motion". The child of motion is conflict, and life is wholly immersed in it. We rarely think about it on a day to day basis, because the brunt of that conflict occurs on a cellular level. Even I write this, my immune system is raging battles throughout my body.
That's the way God made it. So the question "Where is God in war or suffering?" has never made sense to me. God is there. For creation to work, conflict and war is the way it has to be.
The question that makes sense is "Would God approve? Am I acting morally? What is the endgame of this suffering?"
In practical terms, what I'm saying is basically nonsense or, at the very least, "over thinking". But it's served a purpose for me. I am not a particularly moral man, but I believe one of the obligations of being a man is deciding for what you would kill or lay down your life. As a percentage, it's unlikely that I'll ever be in a situation where I have to kill or give my life for someone - and should it happen, it will probably catch me by surprise - but what I don't want to be surprised by, is the choice that I make in that situation.
Or, as Sun Tzu said so much better than me "Under no circumstance is warfare an object of inquiry which may be safely ignored"
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