Hope, Seeing Clearly, Words of Endurance
A Battlefield Perspective
Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground,
absorbed with the things right in front of you.
Look up, and be alert
to what is going on around Christ—
that’s where the action is.
See things from his perspective.
COLOSSIANS 3:2 (THE MESSAGE)
Two D-Day veterans were interviewed for a program commemorating the 61st anniversary of the famous World War II battle. The first veteran was a marine who fought the battle on the ground on Omaha Beach. The other was an Army reconnaissance pilot. He fought the battle in the air high above the seashore.
The Marine described the scene on the sand that day as right out of the movie “Saving Private Ryan.” Men were dropping all around him. It looked hopeless. He began to despair and said to himself, We’re going to lose. I can’t believe it. We’re going to lose.
“That’s how I felt in the heat of the battle that day,” he told the interviewer.
The pilot, however, described a completely different scene. He told the interviewer that he could see everything that was going on including the number of troops on the ground and where they were headed. “I got so excited,” he explained, “because I could see the overall battle. I remember saying out loud, We’re gonna win! We’re gonna win!”
These two men were engaged in the same battle – for the same cause – on the same day. But they had two very different perspectives on the conflict and its probable outcome. When we are in the heat of the battle, surrounded by overwhelming circumstances, like the Marine on Omaha Beach, we also can feel hopeless and near defeat. That is when we need to see our situation from a different perspective. We need a reconnaissance perspective – and God is more than happy to provide it.
It’s what we trust in
but don’t yet see that keeps us going.
1 CORINTHIANS 5:7 (THE MESSAGE)
On the journey with you,
Jan & Dave Dravecky
