Why should we?
April 8, 2008 (Tuesday) Photo of Charles
I saw the 9th inning of the Astros game last night. As it began, Houston was ahead 3-0. St. Louis tied the game with two outs. The fans had been counting on going home with the victory under their belts; now you could feel the disappointment as the cameras panned the stands. The Astros came up to bat, put a man on base, then drove him home with a two-run homer. The cheering was loud and enthusiastic. The players were ecstatic. Once again, Yogi Berra’s words came true, “It ain’t over ‘till it’s over!”
I recall a sermon by Howard Butt, Jr. 57 years ago when I was a college student: “The God of the Second Half.” He used the illustration of a recent college basketball game when our team was behind badly at the half but came back to win the game with a spectacular play. He went on to make the application clear: God always comes through and we should remain faithful to the end.
Many of us recall how England stubbornly said “No!” to Hitler’s demands for surrender, and how the bombs fell on that island nation day after day, but the Britons stubbornly refused to give up. Winston Churchill rallied the spirit of the nation with his great speeches. One in particular comes to my mind today, in which he said, “We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender..” (June 1940, House of Commons).
God never quits. Why should we?