Charlie Kirk would have turned thirty-two years old today. Instead, his life and death will be remembered this evening when President Trump posthumously awards him the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Charlie’s widow, Erika, will join the president for the ceremony in the East Room of the White House.
As I heard a commentator say, Charlie died for what he believed in, but he is being honored for what he did. And God continues to work in response to his tragic death in remarkable ways. For example, the former Navy SEAL and No. 1 New York Times bestselling author Jack Carr said that Charlie’s assassination is prompting him and his family to return to church and to “make some changes” in their lives.
However, despite tonight’s honor and remarkable spiritual responses to Charlie’s death, the fact remains that his wife is a widow raising their children without their father. And the world will miss all Charlie could have done in the decades he should have lived.
In other news, Israelis continue to rejoice in the return of their hostages. More than five hundred thousand Palestinians have returned to Gaza City, and aid to Gaza is significantly increasing.
However, challenges remain. Hamas is reportedly attempting to reassert control in Gaza and punishing those it suspects of collaborating with Israel. Its jihadist ideology remains prevalent in the region. And geopolitical expert Richard Haass warns: “Hamas has not accepted that it must disarm, and even if it did, there is no way to monitor or verify the handing over . . . of its weapons.” He adds that “Hamas can be denied a formal role in Palestinian governance, but it will still have influence, possibly more than any other actor.”
Truth and a Persian legend
In his address to the Knesset yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quoted from the book of Ecclesiastes.
This is because Monday was the seventh day of Sukkot, the Jewish festival known as the Feast of Tabernacles or Feast of Booths (Leviticus 23:42–43), during which it is traditional to read the book. Mr. Netanyahu quoted from the famous third chapter: “A time for war, and a time for peace” (Ecclesiastes 3:8).
However, the latter cannot come unless both sides refuse the former.
In the epigraph to his latest book, The Future of Truth, acclaimed filmmaker Werner Herzog tells what he calls a “Persian legend”:
God had a great mirror, and when God looked in the mirror, he saw the truth. One day God dropped the mirror, and the mirror shattered into a thousand pieces. Men fought to secure a piece of the mirror for themselves. They all looked into their own shards, saw themselves, and thought they saw the truth.
Asaph the psalmist did the same. After complaining that the “wicked” around him are “always at ease” and “increase in riches” (Psalm 73:12), he commented on what he saw in his own “mirror”: “All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence. For all the day long I have been stricken” (vv. 13–14).
I would imagine that Erika Kirk can resonate with Asaph’s “reflection.” As can the hostages and their loved ones, and especially those grieving those they lost on October 7 and because of October 7. As can you and I whenever we face challenges and trials that are not our fault.
“My flesh and my heart may fail”
However, for those who trust in God, the bad news is never the last news.
In Asaph’s case, he reports, “When I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discerned their end” (vv. 16–17). There he saw that God “set them in slippery places” and will “make them fall to ruin” (v. 18) so that “they are destroyed in a moment” (v. 19).
By contrast, Asaph prays,
I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever (vv. 23–26).
God’s omnipotence and omnibenevolence had not changed, but Asaph “went into the sanctuary of God,” where he shifted his soul’s “mirror” from himself to his Lord. Then he saw the reality that was there all along.
This is why we need to trust God most on those days when we want to trust him least.
The Bible is not true because it works—it works (in God’s providence) because it is true. If God is the God of the Bible, he is “that than which nothing greater can be conceived” (quoting St. Anselm). This means that, by definition, his ways are higher than our ways and his thoughts than our thoughts (Isaiah 55:9). If we could understand him, either we would be God or he would not be.
Consequently, the days when our pain and suffering seem to demand that we reject a supposedly all-loving, all-powerful God are the very days we need his love and power the most. The sicker the patient, the more essential the physician.
“Faith is to believe what you do not see”
So, let me invite you to take your “mirror” into “the sanctuary of God” in your heart and point it at your Father. Remember your personal encounters with the grace you see reflected there—the sins he has forgiven, the needs he has met, the prayers he has answered, the salvation he has purchased for your eternal soul.
Then decide to emulate the courage for which Charlie Kirk wanted to be remembered, the courage Eli Sharabi and the other hostages displayed through their ordeal. Decide to use your obstacles as opportunities for faith that shows a skeptical world the reality and relevance of your Lord.
The greater our need for courage, the greater the need our courage will meet.
Let us remember,
“Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe” (St. Augustine).
Will you believe in the One you do not see today?
Quote for the day:
“Faith is deliberate confidence in the character of God whose ways you may not understand at the time.” —Oswald Chambers
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