Charge

Ecclesiastes 2:15 ESV

Then I said in my heart, “what happens to the fool will happen to me also. Why then have I been so very wise?” And I said in my heart that this also is vanity.

I was very annoyed with the Audio Tour as we were driving around Gettysburg. We could not figure out where this or that was. We finally caught up with one of the soundbites and heard the story of the 1^st Minnesota. I now must take back all the bad things I said “in my heart” about technology. As I sat at my desk to write these words, I was able to pull up the offending app from the National Parks Service and relisten to the Audio tour. (Wishing I had known beforehand, we could have listened to the 1 hour audio tour on the 20 hour drive to Pennsylvania!) As I relisten to the section the enormity of their sacrifice is once again upon me. Looking around watching as other units flee to the safety of the rear the two-hundred and sixty-two men of the 1^st Minnesota charge the on coming Alabamians force of one thousand seven hundred men that the line might be shorn up and the day held. They did so at the loss of two-hundred and fifteen men, only forty-seven surviving.

Solomon was living the high life. His kingdom was secure and growing. He wisely administered it and its wealth and fame were growing as well. In his wisdom he saw reality for what it was. His faculties and health were wanning. He looked around and saw the truth and understood his end. He, like all others, would die and go the way of all the earth. He in all his pomp and wisdom, could not avoid the same fate as the fool. Then his heart asks the fateful question, “what’s the point?” Why all this sacrifice, why all this work, if I can do nothing to change my end? At this point his wisdom fails and he joins the fool and says “this too is vanity.” He is right that he will die. He will die just like the mange ridden dog. He will die just like the pathetic fool who won’t work. But vanity is not the death of the wise who fear God. It is easy for us to forget why? To forget the purpose for which we labor and sacrifice. In the throws of the grinding “pointless” effort to believe the lies of the heart that is “deceptively wicked above all things.” This is what had overcome Solomon. Governing a “stiff-necked people” for a few decades had taken its toll and he gave in to cynicism.

As we finished our tour of Gettysburg, we walked to the cemetery where President Lincoln gave his famous address. We took pictures next to the monument erected on the site, and reread his Gettysburg Address. I must confess that this is not my favorite of Lincoln’s Speeches. My favorite lies in his Second Inaugural Address. Mostly because it gives me hope for his soul, that I will meet him in heaven, because heaven is not made for good or great men but saved ones. As he submits himself to God’s will and sees the need for payment for “every drop of blood drawn with the lash is paid with one drawn with the sword… ‘the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether,” I hope that a man who can read our creators will and face so well also submitted to him as savior. Lincoln saw amongst all the blood shed at Gettysburg and hundreds of other battlefields the payment for the injustice of slavery. The reality of our life is that we have no pointless commissions or stations. The Army of the United States might be an exercise in foolish “hurry up and wait” but the LORD’s Army is not so. “All things work for the Good of those who love him.”

As with the 1^st Minnesota, some or many of the men might not have known why they were charging, but they did anyway. They might have even been foolish and thought they were going to win the day by killing the Alabamians. But the man who gave the order knew and they won the victory even as his unit was mowed down and he with them. Solomon worked until he forgot that he had such great wisdom that he might rightly “govern this your great people” (1 Kings 3:9). I do not know what pointless place you think you are in. You might have forgotten why you came there or wished to be there at all. You may never have known why your commander placed you in such a post. Rest assured, he has given the order, and you have obeyed. You are right where he wishes you to be. You might be called upon to charge, to hold the line, or simply carry the wounded, but it will not be a pointless effort. Victory and Valor are not to be judged by your sight but by the commander of the Lord's army who has placed you for his purposes.

“Trust and obey, for there’s no other way, to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.”

Coram Deo