day no. 17,300: the shattered fortunes of our old state

“Go home all you boys who fought with me and help build up the shattered fortunes of our old state” ― Robert E. Lee, The Wit and Wisdom of Robert E. Lee

What can the righteous do when the fortunes of their fathers have been destroyed by others? Go back and build back better.

Psalm 11:3

If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?

There is only one things to be done: begin again. Christendom is fueled by the indomitable power of resurrection. You cannot kill that which can resurrect. You may bury it, but not for long.

“Shake off those gloomy feelings. Drive them away. Fix your mind and pleasures upon what is before you. All is bright if you will think it so. All is happy if you will make it so. Do not dream. It is too ideal, too imaginary. Dreaming by day, I mean. Live in the world you inhabit. Look upon things as they are. Take them as you find them. Make the best of them. Turn them to your advantage.”

― Robert E. Lee

There may be no situation so bad that you cannot make it worse, but there is also no situation so lost that grace cannot help you find it. God takes us from where we are, not where we should have been. So, if we have gotten off track, our best bet is to go back to where the mistake was made and then go forward from there in the right direction. That means tearing down what's left of the mess in order to rebuild what should have been constructed.

1 Corinthians 15:58

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.

By faith we believe that God will establish what He has called us to construct. By faith we build according to His blueprints. And by faith we trust our children to carry on the good work, to correct any mistakes we have made, and to preserve any good that we have done.

"Grand strategy must always remember that peace follows war. " — B. H. Liddell Hart

We must wage the good warfare with the good peace in mind. We should not fight in a way that makes peace harder to secure. We must fight in a manner that both produces the peace God requires and preserves it according to His Word.