Memories of a Just Cause

When the wicked advance against me to devour me,

it is my enemies and my foes

who will stumble and fall.

Though an army besiege me,

my heart will not fear;

though war break out against me,

even then I will be confident. (Psalm 27: 2-3)

Praise the Lord, I've never been a foot soldier in the middle of a war, embattled in combat...literally in the trenches...and I pray I am never put in a position where I get to find out what that really is like.  But I do know the fear of having a powerful army advancing towards my vicinity...

It was the early hours of December 20th, 1989... the darkness before dawn still engulfing Panama City.  I woke up to the confusing sounds of what seemed like a weird mix between a freight train, an earthquake and a thunder storm.  The strange voices coming out of the radio sitting next to my bed...the same radio I used to leave on every night to bring me the comfort of noise in the lonely hours ... bounced around in my head incoherently.  Later I found out regular transistor radios were intercepting some communications among the armed forces at the initial hours of Operation Just Cause...the code name for the American invasion of Panama which I got to witnessed up close and personal. 

Confusion gave way to the slow realization that our city was the target of a massive attack directed at outing military dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega...a character that was not more than a second-rate annoyance to the United States, and a small thorn on the foot of the CIA, but certainly a devastating force of evil for my people, who had our small country under the sharp blade of his machete.

At any rate, all this reminiscing came to mind while reading verses 2 and 3 of Psalm 27... back then, as I was leaving my adolescence and entering adulthood, I wasn't yet very confidently standing on the firm foundation of My Solid Rock and unknown fears loomed in the shadows of my uncertain future, causing me to tremble at the first sign of trouble.  God's Word was not my constant companion, and His promises eluded me.

Over thirty years have gone by, most of which I have actually spent living and loving the very country that once attacked my home...and in those years, much learning has happened...including learning that the One Who Inspired the words in Psalm 27 is Trustworthy and Faithful, and that His promises are true.

The enemy has already stumbled and fallen...and though an army may seem to besiege us and war might explode all around us, our hearts do not fear because we rest in the confidence on the One Who Commands the winds and the waves...the heart trusts the One Who Promises because He is the Storm and He has overcome.

Therefore, whereas it'd be Latin American dictators in the 1980s or home-grown enemies that push to cancel our culture, we remain assured that nothing is out of the control of Our Lord, the One Who Holds the Future in His Hands so we don't have to worry, fear or doubt.