Bullets for the Battle

Christmas, 1776

Our nation came into existence through struggle and sacrifice. Keeping it requires the same kind of mindset and commitment. I offer you a lesson from history.

Let’s look back to Christmas night, 1776. General George Washington crossed the Delaware River leading his meager force in a near suicidal mission to turn the war around.

His men were ill-fed and poorly equipped. Desertions and refusals to re-enlist had reduced the army from 6,000 to 2,400 men. The winter cold increased the suffering of the entire army. Setback had followed setback. Little did they dream that five years hence, they would be victorious! The situation looked hopeless. Washington wrote his brother, “The game is almost up.” It was at this juncture that Thomas Paine penned his stirring words that were to marshal one last effort … “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country, but he that stands now will deserve the love and thinks of every man and woman.”

Washington decided to move against the British Army at Trenton. They had to cross the Delaware River in the middle of a snowstorm to do so. By then the river was in full flood. Massive sheets of ice drifted down from upstream. Militarily speaking, the Delaware was impassable. One officer wrote, “It will be a terrible night for the troops, but I have heard no man complain.” The watchword of the operation was, “Victory or death!”

The trail to the bank of the river was tinged with blood from the feet of nearly naked men who wore broken shoes or no shoes. All night and into the morning the 40-foot Durham boats ferried men, horses and cannons. On and on they moved in the face of gale-driven sleet. By 4:00 am with the army across the river, there were still nine miles to march before dawn.

The powder was so dampened that most of the guns were useless. “Use your bayonets,” ordered Washington. “I am resolved to take Trenton.” The attack on the unsuspecting enemy lasted little more than half-an-hour. The results have lasted over two-hundred years. His victory was total. It was only Washington’s inner resolve to sacrifice as a patriot leader that inflamed a new inner resolve in his infant and despairing nation.

This is the kind of “resolve” Americans must possess if we are to make the coming year a stepping stone to higher and nobler realities. Our souls are being tried. No one must complain. We must see afresh our urgent priority of victory in honor, integrity and justice. It is again time to pay any price … even death by some … to keep it from slipping away.

“Challenging” days of fresh revolution are ahead of us. The “enemy” facing us now is not only our own sloth and moral bankruptcy but also a new and more obvious terrorism. Our cost of battle will be as awesome as that one long ago. We cannot falter between two opinions. Fair weather Americans and weak muscled Christians will be carried away in the flood.

General Joshua, the great leader of Israel, calls to us today as he did to another army … 3,300 years ago, “Choose this day who you will serve. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Tragically, too many who call themselves Christian and American won’t even struggle to find the noble, costly choices … much less choose them!

No generation in the history of civilization has had more freedom, more marvels, more abundance, more leisure than the current American generation. Pitifully, in possessing all this we have been without true gratitude to God or others. Most of us have been caught up in exhausting ourselves on ourselves. In all our “mores” perhaps we will not squander our unique opportunity for “more greatness.”

My prayer for me … and you … and all Americans, especially those of faith … is that enough of us, like Washington and his army, will resolve to find and cross our own Delawares, walk our own costly trails, and arrive at our own chosen Trentons. Only those of us who do so can hope to be called noble Americans.