SCRIPTURE: Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain. Psalm 127:1 NIV
QUOTE: We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” – Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States, Closing Remark, Gettysburg Address, Nov. 19, 1863
THOUGHT: I can still hear the strains of “You’re So Vain” in my head after all these years. Sometimes it sounds like Carly Simon, sometimes like a duet between Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson that makes me laugh until I cry. Always it sounds like a whole song that’s not about what it’s about.
We can all be like that, so vain we think this “song” or story is all about us. God would say if we want to go about life that way, we can go on building without him, trying like everything to protect what we’ve built, but it will all be in vain. All that effort, all those resources, all that talent, all that strength, all that life – in vain. Wasted.
This was Lincoln’s greatest fear: would history show the Civil War carnage was in vain? Historians for most of the decades since named the losses at 620,000 men, but a researcher in 2011 who studied the U.S. Census documents from 1850 to 1870 discovered a loss of young men numbering closer to 750,000-850,000. And then Lincoln himself died, assassinated before his plans for the country under God could have a new birth of freedom. Reconstruction became a mess and the rest, as they say, is history. A country that in many ways remains divided, more on worldview than on a single issue or a geographic division.
It’s really not all about us, it’s about a God who stepped into history to redeem the humans he made and loved. And unless he’s invited to the construction site, the house will fall.
PRAYER: Oh God, come be our help, that these dead – all the men and women who’ve given their lives for this country – may not have died in vain.
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Blogger Amy Clemens is the author of Walking When You’d Rather Fly: Meditations on Faith After the Fall. In it she explores childhood sexual abuse and how it impacted her faith (or lack thereof) for four decades. You’ll find not only her story, but better yet, the Big Story of God.
Check out Walking When You’d Rather Fly, and learn more about the book and Amy’s other ministries. You will also find her devotional work at Words of Hope.
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