This story of God’s divine protection and of
Washington’s open gratitude could be found
in virtually all school textbooks until 1934.
Now few Americans have read it. Washington
often recalled this dramatic event that helped
shape his character and confirm God’s call on
his life.
Though a thousand fall at your side,
though ten thousand are dying around
you, these evils will not touch you.
Psalm 91:7
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Bulletproof
ReplyDeleteThe French and Indian War: Account of a British Officer
July 9, 1755
The American Indian chief looked scornfully at the soldiers on the field before him. How foolish it was to fight as they did, forming their perfect battle lines out in the open, standing shoulder to shoulder in their bright red uniforms. The British soldiers—trained for European war—did not break rank, even when braves fired at them from under the safe cover of the forest. The slaughter continued for two hours. By then 1,000 of 1,459 British soldiers were killed or wounded, while only 30 of the French and Indian warriors firing at them were injured.
Not only were the soldiers foolish, but their officers were just as bad. Riding on horseback, fully exposed above the men on the ground, they made perfect targets. One by one, the chief’s marksmen shot the mounted British officers until only one remained.
“Quick, let your aim be certain and he dies,” the chief commanded. The warriors leveled their rifles at the last officer on horseback. Round after round was aimed at this one man. Twice the officer’s horse was shot out from under him. Twice he grabbed a horse left idle when a fellow officer had been shot down. Ten, twelve, thirteen rounds were fired by the sharpshooters. Still, the officer remained unhurt.
The native warriors stared at him in disbelief. Their rifles seldom missed their mark. The chief suddenly realized that a mighty power must be shielding this man. “Stop firing!” he commanded. “This one is under the special protection of the Great Spirit.” A brave standing nearby added, “I had seventeen clear shots at him…and after all could not bring him to the ground. This man was not born to be killed by a bullet.”
As the firing slowed, the lieutenant colonel gathered the remaining troops and led the retreat to safety. That evening, as the last of the wounded were being cared for, the officer noticed an odd tear in his coat. It was a bullet hole! He rolled up his sleeve and looked at his arm directly under the hole. There was no mark on his skin. Amazed, he took off his coat and found three more holes where bullets had passed through his coat but stopped before they reached his body.
Nine days after the battle, having heard a rumor of his own death, the young lieutenant colonel wrote his brother to confirm that he was still very much alive.
As I have heard since my arrival at this place, a circumstantial account of my death and dying speech, I take this early opportunity of contradicting the first and of assuring you that I have not as yet composed the latter. But by the all-powerful dispensations of Providence I have been protected beyond all human probability or expectation; for I had four bullets through my coat, and two horses shot under me yet escaped unhurt, although death was leveling my companions on every side of me!
This battle, part of the French and Indian War, was fought on July 9, 1755, near Fort Duquesne, now the city of Pittsburgh. The twenty-three-year-old officer went on to become the commander in chief of the Continental Army and the first president of the United States. In all the years that followed in his long career, this man, George Washington, was never once wounded in battle.
Fifteen years later, in 1770, George Washington returned to the same Pennsylvania woods. A respected Indian chief, having heard that Washington was in the area, traveled a long way to meet with him.
He sat down with Washington, and face-to-face over a council fire, the chief told Washington the following:
I am a chief and ruler over my tribes. My influence extends to the waters of the great lakes and to the far blue mountains. I have traveled a long and weary path that I might see the young warrior of the great battle. It was on the day when the white man’s blood mixed with the streams of our forests that I first beheld this chief [Washington].
I called to my young men and said, “Mark yon tall and daring warrior? He is not of the red-coat tribe—he hath an Indian’s wisdom and his warriors fight as we do—himself alone exposed. Quick, let your aim be certain, and he dies.”
Our rifles were leveled, rifles which, but for you, knew not how to miss—’twas all in vain, a power mightier far than we shielded you.
Seeing you were under the special guardianship of the Great Spirit, we immediately ceased to fire at you. I am old and shall soon be gathered to the great council fire of my fathers in the land of the shades, but ere I go, there is something bids me speak in the voice of prophecy:
Listen! The Great Spirit protects that man [pointing at Washington], and guides his destinies—he will become the chief of nations, and a people yet unborn will hail him as the founder of a mighty empire. I am come to pay homage to the man who is the particular favorite of Heaven, and who can never die in battle.
* * * * *
This story of God’s divine protection and of Washington’s open gratitude could be found in virtually all school textbooks until 1934. Now few Americans have read it. Washington often recalled this dramatic event that helped shape his character and confirm God’s call on his life.
Though a thousand fall at your side,
though ten thousand are dying around you,
these evils will not touch you.
Psalm 91:7 NLT
Dead Men Walking
ReplyDeleteIn war-torn relationships of Northern Uganda, forgiveness is complicated. Betty was a teenager when her village was raided by the Lord’s Resistance Army, a rebel army known for its brutal tactics and widespread human rights violations. She was kidnapped as a sex slave for a commander and ordered to commit callous acts of violence as a child soldier, until gradually she was broken and became an active member of the LRA.
After six years of bloodshed, however, Betty managed to escape, running across country to freedom. But coming home would not be a simple matter of returning. She had committed violence against the very people she hoped to rejoin. Her own guilt and shame was as palpable as the mistrust and anger of her village. In her absence, two of her own brothers had been killed by the same army Betty fought alongside.
In the midst of such loss, with so many permanent scars, forgiveness might seem hopeful, but perhaps naïve at best. Is reconciliation even
to be desired when brokenness is irreversible? Does forgiveness cease to be hopeful when neither party can ever be the same again?
The people of Uganda believe it is. For hundreds and hundreds of children like Betty, terrorized by crimes they were forced to commit and returning home to terrorized villages, tribal elders have adapted a ceremony to make it possible for both. In a ceremony that includes the act of breaking and stepping on an egg and an opobo branch, the returnee is cleansed from the things he or she has done while away. The egg symbolizes innocent life, and by breaking and placing themselves in its broken substance, returnees declare before their village their desire to be restored to the way they used to be. In a final step over a pole, the returnees step into new life. In many cases, women returnees come home with babies who were born in the bush, usually a result of rape. When they arrive at the broken egg, the child’s foot is placed in the substance, too. The
spirit of reconciliation, like warfare, must touch everyone.
...
In a single weekend, Christians have just remembered the crucifixion of Jesus, his burial on Good Friday, the silence of Holy Saturday, and the terror and amazement of Easter Sunday. In a weekend, we were reminded how the disciples failed him miserably, falling asleep when he needed them most in prayer, denying ever knowing him as he was convicted for being himself, watching him die alone from a distance. In a weekend, we moved from recognizing ourselves in this list of failures to sensing the hopeful confusion of the disciples, the overwhelm of Thomas, and the timid longing of the women at the tomb. In a single weekend, we moved from complete despair to shocking hope, total darkness to surprising light, the finality of death to the last word of resurrection, from broken and sinful to restored and forgiven.
In this solitary weekend, Christians remember a story that should make the bold and touching
forgiveness of war-torn Ugandans seem natural, expected, and necessary, however shocking or complicated or slow-coming it might be for us. After the egg-breaking ceremony, Betty went from rebel to ex-rebel, shamed to restored. “I feel cleansed,” she said of the ceremony. After a day of being welcomed and celebrated, she adds, “Some of the bad things in my heart: they are gone.”(1) Alex Boraine, deputy chair of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, notes of such radical forgiveness: “[With its] uncomfortable commitment to bringing the perpetrator back into the family, Africa has something to say to the world.”(2)
So does Christ Jesus. In one eventful weekend, we remember the ugly depths of our sin and stare into the deep scars of the servant who bore it away. This utter shift in our condition is as overwhelming as Good Friday, as dumbfounding as Holy Saturday, and as inconceivable as Easter Sunday. But it is our ceremony. Christ is broken, we are covered in his
blood, and we emerge as dead men walking. How beyond our knowing, that in the Father’s inexplicable mercy and loving-kindness, to redeem a slave, He gave a Son. Yet because God did, in a weekend, we can claim again this mystery; we can claim the power of reconciliation; we can claim Christ, who has moved us from perpetrator to family.
Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.
(1) Abraham McLaughlin, “Africa After War: Paths To Forgiveness--Ugandans Welcome ‘Terrorists’ Back” Christian Science Monitor, October 23, 2006.
(2) Ibid.
Ichabod: Where is the Glory? by Ravi Zacharias
Preconceived opinions can hinder clear thinking and endanger one's ability to recognize truth. Jesus Christ was not recognized for who He was. Even after His Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, prejudices kept people from recognizing the very One they were waiting for. In this week’s Let My People Think message, we find how
a refusal to recognize the revealed truth of God can have devastating effects.
Click here to listen:http://www.rzim.org/USA/Resources/Listen/LetMyPeopleThink.aspx