Making a Difference

These last two weeks have been fraught with emotion, littered with accusation, peppered with confusing information, and assaulted with troubling images. We started with bewilderment, a majority in agreement that we needed to pull out of Afghanistan, but a disagreement about how or when to do it. We quickly moved to anger when we realized “The Plan” was flawed, but who among us is capable of building a better plan? We have been dismayed by stories of allies unable to gain safe passage. We have felt impotent, the only true global Superpower hobbled by a ragtag group of belligerents who “own the time.”

And then there came anger as more than a dozen brothers’ and sisters’ lives were cut short in their prime. Never mind they died a warrior’s death serving others. Never mind they were in their element, doing what they loved. Never mind they answered a grateful nation’s call when those who couldn’t do for themselves needed our brave service men and women to do for them. Amid the cries we hear, “Till Valhalla” and “Never Forgotten.”

Behind the scenes hundreds of people – Christians and pagans, Democrats and Republicans and Libertarians, fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers, veterans and contractors – fought to ensure their deaths had meaning. Nobody questioned that their lives had meaning.

“Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world. But, the Marines don't have that problem.” – Ronald Reagan, 40th President of these United States

But how do we, Servant Leader, know that we’ve made a difference? How do we make a difference when chaos reigns, when evil moves apparently unchecked, when lies and deceit are the currency of the age? How do we make a difference, Servant Leader, when nobody is listening and those who are hear their own narrative in everything we say?

We start by remembering that the One who holds the stars in his hands, the One who numbered the hairs on every slain service member’s head, the One who tells the sun when to rise and the sea where to stop, is also the One who hears a mother’s inconsolable cry, who holds tight an unborn child who will never know his father, and who forgives when a father’s thoughts turn violent as they lower his son’s flag-draped coffin into the ground.

We start by realizing that our place isn't to fix everything; rather, it is to bear some things. One man is powerless against the evils of this world. And one man is powerful enough to bring a nation to its knees by felling towers of steel. One woman is weak in the eyes of her Taliban overlords. But one woman is also strong in the eyes of those who called her "Mother." One nation is impotent when it follows on its knees without question. But one nation is omnipotent when it leads on its knees with prayer and fasting.

"If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." (2 Chr 7:14, KJV)

Servant Leader, making a difference starts with making a decision. We are already on our knees. It's up to us to decide how we serve from here.

(Photo: Pinterest)