Who Are You on this Memorial Day?

 

 

“Wherever you are, there you are.”

My mom told me that, but I doubted the voracity of her little axiom (probably because she was my mom, and moms are supposed to be doubted by their prepubescent sons as a proof that they are young and stupid though they believe themselves to be mature and erudite).

Mom's little dictum about being "who I am, wherever I am" has never been more apparent to me than when I’m traveling through foreign countries. And since I was in The West Bank last week, walking the desert rim of Masada a few days before Memorial Day, my experience there hooked Mom's quaint little saying and pulled it up from my reservoir of “Mom’s Memorable Mantras.”

Mom was right when she said, “I am who I am wherever I am.” Even Popeye the Sailor Man agreed with my mom. He often said, “I yam what I yam.” 

I was at Masada last week but I was still me ... 'cause I yam what I yam: a Christ-follower, Sheila’s husband, a pastor in our Lord’s Church and a proud citizen of the United States of America.

"Wherever I am, there I am," so reading the final words of a Jewish leader telling his people (the night before the Romans breached the fortress walls of Masada) that death was preferable to slavery, made me think of Patrick Henry’s 1775 speech to the legislators of the Virginia Colony. He said: ”Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”

Today is Memorial Day.

"I am who I am wherever I am," so I paused this morning to thank GOD for the freedoms we enjoy. America's freedoms are unlike anything the world has ever known. Our liberty is, in no small part, the consequence of firm and faithful resolve, rooted deeply in Christ and nurtured by the Truth of GOD’s Word. Ours is freedom purchased by sacrifice. Ours is justice tempered by righteousness.

Liberty is ours because millions of men and women are willing to stand and defend our Constitution against enemies foreign and domestic, sacrificing themselves in defense of our inalienable GOD-given-right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

"I am who I am," so today I honored the men and women who died in the Armed Services of the United States of America.

I hope you marked this day according to Major General John A. Logan’s 1868 order to decorate graves “with the choicest flowers of springtime.” He advised: “We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance. ... Let pleasant paths invite the coming and going of reverent visitors and fond mourners. Let no neglect, no ravages of time, testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic.”

May GOD bless the United States of America.

 

Philippians 1:19-25   -   I’m going to keep that celebration going because I know how it’s going to turn out. Through your faithful prayers and the generous response of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, everything he wants to do in and through me will be done. I can hardly wait to continue on my course. I don’t expect to be embarrassed in the least. On the contrary, everything happening to me in this jail only serves to make Christ more accurately known, regardless of whether I live or die. They didn’t shut me up; they gave me a pulpit! Alive, I’m Christ’s messenger; dead, I’m his bounty. Life versus even more life! I can’t lose.
    As long as I’m alive in this body, there is good work for me to do. If I had to choose right now, I hardly know which I’d choose. Hard choice! The desire to break camp here and be with Christ is powerful. Some days I can think of nothing better. But most days, because of what you are going through, I am sure that it’s better for me to stick it out here. So I plan to be around awhile, companion to you as your growth and joy in this life of trusting God continues.