My Hope is in Christ... Not Donald Trump
The peace of the world pales when held against the peace Jesus offers
The first Gulf War began when I was 16. My generation was raised by the men who fought in Vietnam, but this was our first taste of waking up to damage assessments and casualty reports. We also had something our parents did not when it came to bearing witness to wars being fought in our name: the advent of cable television had given birth to a relentless, 24 hour news cycle. If we chose, we could tune in to Wolf Blitzer on CNN at nearly any hour and get an update on how many tons of munitions were dropped hither and yon.
It was unsettling, and shaping in a way I didn’t really understand for a full decade. The bright morning of September 11, 2001, found me at home with my 3 year-old daughter and 15 month-old son, grappling with the understanding that the attacks I was seeing play out were the opening salvos to something inescapable. Just a bit older, just a bit wiser, I could already see that this blood would be called to answer— and of course, I was right. If the first Gulf War rubbed the edges off my innocence, it was the War on Terror that gave me sharp corners of expectation when it comes to an awareness of the world around me and how sometimes, it is force that replies to the question of how far is too far on the international stage.
The U.S. has launched over 200 military actions since that day in 1991 my mother told me to stop and get a full tank of gas on the way to school because the George Bush had gone on the news to announce that we were involved in the Middle East. There’ve been a few times where I’ve held my breath a bit, wondering if the entanglements would explode into larger scale skirmishes or outright wars. I suppose, having grown up hearing men recount stories of being teenagers plucked from suburban lives and dropped into jungles a world away, I never had the luxury some of my younger friends have enjoyed. In a way, I’ve always expected news of battles and blood to leak back into my daily life, and the actual explosion of conflict only confirms what I was taught to know of the world. I was never told there would be peace. I was never led to anticipate that a sense of brotherhood would rise between nations and ensure that the fighting would end. My lived experience and my knowledge of the Word of God told me something altogether different.
And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.—Matthew 24:6-8
Mamaw sent one of her twins to Vietnam. Only one. My father was 4F— unfit due to a back injury sustained during a motorcycle accident just months before the draft number he shared with his minutes-younger brother was called up. This was a turning point for my family, a season where faith was stretched and tested and, for some members, failed entirely. But Mamaw held firm and found her footing in the hope that some day, all wars would cease. I never heard her say that the end was near, or try to attach an expiration date to the world and its madness. Instead, she confidently, quietly rested in the knowledge that every day was a little closer and so, naturally, those tumultuous things would pick up pace. Her son came home changed forever, but instead of shaking with fear, hers was the voice that reminded me of God’s sovereignty and purpose when men picked up arms to challenge one another.
Her secret: the peace of Christ over the peace of the world.
“These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place you may believe. I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me, but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go from here.—John 14:25-32
The rhetoric began ramping up weeks ago. I saw it on social media, got threads of it filtered back to me through friends who stay abreast of the news. An alarming thing would be reported, but then assurances given:
Israel’s got it under control.
Unless they attack our troops directly, we’ll stay out.
Trump said no wars! He won’t get involved.
We’re too smart to get into another unending war in the Middle East.
Iran will back down. They’re all talk.
This is the peace the world offers: don’t be worried! Nothing will happen. But what, then, when it does? What of this peace when the quiet is shattered, when the door is beaten down, when the hollow words are revealed for what they really are? The illusionary veil of comfort is lifted, and the full weight of fear and dread collapse on a heart unprepared to grapple with the fully depraved state of man.
Ah, but the peace of Christ! The peace Jesus offers a believer says yes, the door may well be beaten down by a beast. The worst might just happen. And yet:
“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”—John 16:33
Those who have been redeemed by the blood of Christ may be taken by surprise, or shaken in the moment. They may look into the unknown and tremble. But they do not lose heart because their peace is based on something more than the promises of man. Their peace flows from the author of Truth, the One whose love never fails— and whose sword sharper than any forged here on earth. Their peace is inexhaustible because its source never runs dry.
I don’t know what the next few weeks or months or years will bring. Like you, I am learning terms like “bunker buster” and praying fervently for a whole whack-a-mole of items that I cannot control but God can. I could give myself over to fear for my family members in uniform, or gas prices, or whether travel to Nepal see my daughter and grandchildren might be compromised, or what kind of response Iran might be planning. Well meaning Christians have already offered me words they thought I might need to hear. They all placed their hope in Trump’s cunning plans, or Iran’s lack of international support, or our nation’s military might.
Me? I choose to place my hope in something bigger. I choose to acknowledge that the bad might be around the corner, but my circumstances rest with my Savior. We might be experiencing just another blip in the long-term story of the world, or we might be watching the unfolding of a conflict that will shape generations. Regardless, I will lean on what I have come to know and trust, what was shaped in me as I listened to Mamaw recount the day her son boarded a bus for boot camp, as I watched the night skies over Baghdad burn, as I gasped when the Twin Towers fell…
Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.—Philippians 4:5-7
The peace of God, which passes all understanding.
In Christ,
Heather
Amen.
My hope is in Him too.