To Our Veterans...

My father served our country in World War II, stationed in Guam, the Philippines, and Japan. I have a few old photos he took during his wartime service, but I have few, if any wartime stories from him. Like many of his generation, it wasn’t something that he talked about much. I do know that the day after Pearl Harbor, he and a friend drove directly to Kansas City to enlist in the military. There was a huge influx of enlistees after December 7, 1941, much like we experienced after September 11, 2001. Patriotic spirit never dies in our country, but incidents like Pearl Harbor or 9/11 rekindle our American resolve for freedom and justice.

One liberty that we enjoy is the freedom to worship in whatever manner we like. Our founding fathers thought it important enough to include it in our Bill of Rights, sort of the Ten Commandments of our nation. Veterans from the Revolutionary War on have fought and died for my right to openly go to church and worship God. It’s something that I take for granted much too much.

Just a quick search of the word worship in any Bible website will garner dozens of results of how we are to worship God. Here are just a few from Psalms:

Psalm 66:4 
All the earth bows down to you; they sing praise to you, they sing praise to your name.


Psalm 95:6-7
Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker;

Psalm 99:5
Exalt the LORD our God and worship at his footstool; he is holy.


Praise, bow down, exalt. I really wonder if we do enough of any of those. I know I don’t. Worship time should be, well, worshipful. Full of excitement. I heard a preacher once say he sees far more excitement at a football game than he does for God, and it’s true. How often do we mark that big game on our mental calendar, make every preparation in the world, invite friends over to share the experience of our team taking the field against a hated rival. Maybe we should approach worship in a similar fashion. We should prepare for worship as if it’s a big event because, well, it is. Jesus told us plainly in Matthew 18:20, "...where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them." Encountering the Spirit of God IS a big deal, but we sometimes forget what our worship is all about.

There are many places in the world that Christians aren’t free to worship. On October 29, six Algerian Christians were arrested before their morning prayer service in an apartment not authorized as a legal place of worship. We can’t imagine this, yet this is a comparatively mild form of persecution. Emeal Zwayne, executive vice president of Living Waters, said that few Christians in the U.S. are even aware "that an estimated 176,000 Christians were killed for their beliefs from mid-2008 to mid-2009." You could say that it’s due to our own ignorance of the facts, or perhaps a lack of media reporting these atrocities, and you’d have a point. But you can’t ignore the fact that we have a wonderful freedom that has been defended with the service and often the lives of many an American Veteran and we all too often take that for granted.

At my father’s funeral, many touching things were said and done. But one of the most meaningful gestures was carried out by his Veterans of Foreign War colleagues. Dozens of veterans from WWII, the Korean War, Vietnam, and the Gulf War stepped up one by one and saluted my father as he lay in repose. Remembering that simple act of respect and appreciation still moves me greatly. As we commemorate Veteran’s Day this Friday, may we always show our respect and appreciation for the men and women who’ve allowed us to keep our many freedoms, not the least of which, the wonderful freedom we have to worship our Almighty Father in a manner that He is worthy.