day no. 17,333: monsters within and monsters without

"Save for defense of my native state, I never desire again to draw my sword." ― Robert E. Lee

A good soldier must rise up to defend his people, but he must not get off on getting after others. He must be a man of peace inasmuch as it is the true aim of his warfare. He is willing to war for the sake of peace, but not for the sake of scratching some itch to mix things up.

"The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him." ― G.K. Chesterton

A good man puts himself between the danger and the beloved. He fights hard against those opposing his people precisely because his people are behind him. A good soldier is his people's shield. He protects them from the weapons of the wicked by engaging with them directly in combat.

Nehemiah 4:14

And I looked, and rose up, and said unto the nobles, and to the rulers, and to the rest of the people, Be not ye afraid of them: remember the Lord, which is great and terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons, and your daughters, your wives, and your houses.

We must not be the people other communities need to protect themselves from. We must not become the monsters against which the good men of that land gather together to oppose in order to protect the people that they love. Live in peace and quiet and be willing and able to defend your place and your people, but resist the urge to become the kind of person a peaceful people would need to protect themselves from. 

A good man must be able to be strong enough to fight back the monsters and strong enough to resist the urge to become one.

day no. 17,332: Christ is a good commander in chief

"To be a good soldier, you must love the army. To be a good commander, you must be willing to order the death of the thing you love." ― Robert E. Lee

A good warrior loves the battle. A good general loves winning the battle. The solider puts his life on the line. The commander must put his troops in the line of fire. A good solider loves the things behind him and so he fights the evil in front of him that is coming against it. A good general loves the men in front of him, but he must send them into contact with the evil if there is any hope of saving and defending the things his soldiers love.

"The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him." — G.K. Chesterton

The good, or true, soldier is not motivated by hatred of what is before him, but by love of that which is behind him. He lays his life down in the hopes of saving the lives of those back at home. The good, or true, commander is not so indifferent to his men as to send them unnecessarily into harm's way or into more harm's away than absolutely essential to the mission, but he is also not so sentimental that he cannot bear to send his beloved men into battle. He must send them into harm's way, but he must do so with a heavy heart and a hope and a prayer that most, if not all of them, will come back.

"Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die.” — G.K. Chesterton

The solider is willing to die because he thinks life is worth living and he wants his loved ones back at home to continue enjoying their lives. Courage is loving life enough to be ready to die for it.

"The one perfectly divine thing, the one glimpse of God's paradise given on earth, is to fight a losing battle - and not lose it." — G.K. Chesterton

You must fight with a mind to win and a willingness to die. You cannot kill other men in good conscience without accepting their right to defend themselves against you. And you must be willing to lose your life for the sake of advancing your cause.

“Christendom has had a series of revolutions and in each one of them Christianity has died. Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had a God who knew the way out of the grave.” — G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

God has defeated defeat. He is a good general. He is not indifferent to His men. He sends them into harm's way, but He does so for the love of the world and the glory of His name. Christ is a good commander in chief. His people are not merely pawns in a game, they are His squad in the heart of eternal struggle and spiritual warfare.

Psalm 116:15

Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.

Not one hair can fall from our head without His knowledge, how much more so any soul who falls in the line of duty?

day no. 17,331: indefensible

"We have an army far better adapted to attack than to defend. Let us fight at advantage before we are forced to fight at disadvantage." — J. E. B. Stuart

You must know your strengths and then you must choose your battlefield. Do your best to fight how you want, where you want, and when you want instead of how you don't where you don't when you don't.

Luke 14:31-32

What king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace.

In matters of conflict, it is always wise to do the math. Can you win with what you have? Can you defeat what your adversary has? It is wiser to wage peace when you're outmatched than it is to wage war.

Acts 5:39

But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.

Men are beatable under the right circumstances, but God is not. You can never defeat God and you can never defeat a man who has God on his side as Goliath knows all too well. It is wiser to wage peace with the Lord than it is to rail against Him. You will never win. You are outmatched, outnumbered, outmaneuvered, and overpowered. Best to stand down and be invited to rise from the dead than to stand up to God and be forced to bend the knee.

You cannot defend yourself against God. It is indefensible. You can and must attack your sin. If you don't, God will attack you and you won't be able to hold your ground.

day no. 17,330: the correct view of life and death

“Get correct views of life, and learn to see the world in its true light. It will enable you to live pleasantly, to do good, and, when summoned away, to leave without regret.” ― Robert E. Lee

Correct views come from somewhere. They are not built in, they are brought in. God is our Creator and Sustainer. He is perfect. His Law is holy, perfect, and good. It teaches us what life should be like and how to navigate things as they are.

John 1:9-10

The true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world, He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.

We do not know the correct views of life by nature. We cannot conceive them by speculation. They can only be received by revelation. God has revealed Himself to us and so we must walk in His light. If we do, we will live and die well. We won't die wishing we had done differently. 

Psalm 119:105

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.

Those who walk in the light in this life will never walk in darkness. They will not lay down in the dark. They will walk from this life into eternity with the lamp of Christ to guide them.

Revelation 22:5

And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.

Hear the Word, Believe the Word, Do the Word. The man who does this will hear, "Well done!"

day no. 17,329: sword play when things are serious

"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come, and that soon; and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." ― Stonewall Jackson

Enmity is inescapable. Conflict is in the cards. Good and evil cannot coexist, regardless of what the bumper stickers tell us. God has infused enmity into the order of the world, or rather, it should be said into the disorder of the world. God is not a God of disorder, but of order. It is Christ or chaos. The two are mutually exclusive. They cannot kumbaya. There will be warfare. There armies may not always be actively firing at each other, but they are always maneuvering, planning, and positioning themselves for their next assaults.

So, they may not always be exchanging blows, but they are always preparing for the next strike. And if something is worth hitting over, it is worth hitting hard over. There is no sense is soft hitting. There is no mercy in being milquetoast. Swift and severe often ends in less overall devastation than slow and subtle. If you unsheathe your sword, don't put it away until there is nothing left to swing at. Cut and hack most resolutely, and then remember to clean your sword. (Pilgrim's Progress, The Chronicles of Narnia)

"The unforgivable crime is soft hitting. Do not hit at all if it can be avoided; but never hit softly." — Theodore Roosevelt

Casualties are reduced when contacts are made to count. An efficient first strike can sometimes be sufficient enough to eliminate the need for future engagement. If you can convince the enemy to stand down, you can save more of your enemies lives than you could have by convincing them that they had a chance.

"If you decide to fight, you also have to decide to win." — Luther (movie: 2003)

You cannot fight half-heartedly. If something is worth fighting about, it is worth fighting as hard as you can about.

"Believe that you can whip the enemy, and you have won half the battle." — J. E. B. Stuart

You should not swing unless you think you can take him and then, swing away. But don't timidly tap your opponent. Either give them the dignity of loving them well as an enemy by opposing them ferociously or give them an apology for having previously opposed them and love them by becoming their friend. If they should be opposed, then oppose them well. That is loving your enemy. If they should not be opposed, stop opposing them and ask them for their forgiveness for having done so before. That is also loving your enemy.

day no. 17,328: education and the end of everything as we know it

“The education of a man is never completed until he dies.” ― Robert E. Lee

Education is the nourishment and instruction of the Lord and its aim is to conform us to the image of Christ. As such, it is completed only when we become like Him in death. As long as we are alive, it continues. We are never done learning. We are always being conformed to the image of Christ. That is the end for which we were made and saved.

Romans 8:29-32

For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

We get the English word “education” from the Latin “educere.” (eh-DOO-kay-ray) The etymology of this word is the Latin prefix “e” meaning “of” or “from,” and the word “ducere” meaning “to lead” or “to draw out.” So putting it all together, education is leading or drawing someone out of something. An education, therefore, always presupposes a start and a finish or to frame it in more theological terms, an origin and an eschatology. An education assumes certain things about where we came from as well as about where we should be going. So, where does a Christian education begin? With the end in mind.

Which is to say that education begins and ends with Christ. Anything less is not Christian. It is antichrist. We are being led somewhere by someone and the where and one are the same: Christ.

Q: What is the chief end of man?

A. Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.

― Westminster Shorter Catechism, Question 1

We are being led to the right hand of the Father. That is where Christ is and that is where endless joy abounds.

Psalm 16:11

Thou wilt shew me the path of life: 

in Thy presence is fulness of joy; 

at Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.

This is the end. In Christ, our education is completed. We do not graduate beyond grace. We continue on to greater degrees as we become more like.

2 Corinthians 3:18

But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit.

Onward and upward, to Narnia and the North. Further up and further in forever and ever, world without end, and amen.

day no. 17,327: that blessed arrangement

“Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes: in the sense that almost certainly… both partners might have found more suitable mates. But the real soul-mate is the one you are actually married to.” — J.R.R. Tolkien, in a letter to his son

There is no such thing as the one. There are better matches than others, but at the end of the day, there is the one you chose and your commitment to your choice.

"First a man must choose his love, and then he must love his choice" — Henry Smith

If you choose a spouse, you also choose to stop looking for another. Once you have said, "I do," and she has said, "I do too," you have promised to stop considering other options. With respect to all other eligible prospects, you are saying, "I don't." Every "yes" is a "no." To say, "Yes," to this way is to say, "No," to that way. To say, "Yes," to this person is to say, "No," to that person.

"Many a man has been lucky in marrying the woman he loves. But he is luckiest in loving the woman he marries." — G.K. Chesterton

Your soul-mate is the one you are married to. No better match can come along after the fact. Once the fact of the marriage exists, there is no better option than the one you call your spouse.