power

After 25 years as an Army Guardsman, I think I’m as patriotic as anyone. And I certainly am not squeamish about using our military. I believe God gave the sword to government to be used for just purposes.

But over the years I’ve come to see the topic more and more like God does. It’s a view that’s captured well in Psalm 147:10-11: “His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse, nor his delight in the legs of the warrior; the Lord delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love.”

God gets no pleasure out of any government’s use of the sword, much less individuals. We talk about the ability to project power, that is, to rapidly move our troops and ships around the world to make sure things go our way. God has no interest in that.

God changes the world through compassionate hearts and those who trust in him. God protects those who look to him. God doesn’t want me to share Stalin’s sneering dismissal of the Pope when he said, “How many divisions does he have?” It’s not those thousands of troops that will achieve what God is working on.

So these days I view the images of mighty warships and intimidating flights of warplanes with ambivalence. There’s a part of me that still swells with pride; part of me still responds to the tough-guy Army slogans like “We’re the thing that scares you in the night” or “Often mistaken for the wrath of God.”

But the more mature me recognizes that God’s wrath is most likely to fall on the physically powerful who wantonly destroy. Even though God gave the sword to government, I’m not sure God personally uses armies to do his will. He permits them as a means for nations to deter evil, but God seems to prefer changing Taliban hearts and turning them to Gospel-bringers, as my missionary brother has seen him do. I think God wants to save souls, not kill them.

At a minimum, I need to realize that what God wants of me personally is to put my hope in him instead of the US and it’s military. I need to trust God instead of wanting to give Christians political power as a path to revival. I need to see that my prayers will do far more than anything anyone ever accomplished with a weapon.