Issue link: http://denverseminary.uberflip.com/i/1314061
23 STRONG TO ENDURE Psalm 126 You may be interested to learn that Dr. Bruce Shelley, an esteemed Seminary colleague, has been writing my biography. Daughter Barbara also has been at work on the same task. Perhaps, therefore, by next Christmas anybody who is interested will be able to read about my humdrum career. In Dr. Shelley's account, the development of our Seminary as well as some of the theological issues of the last century will be interwoven with allusions to the development of American evangelicalism in the twentieth century. All of this, though, seems less than incidental when compared with the Twin Towers atrocity. So let me push this repor t beyond the orbit of our little lives and comment on the horrific act of terrorism which took place on September 11, shattering the illusion of our national invulnerability and our personal security as USA citizens. We who are Christians share with all our fellow Americans the shock, the grief, the anger, the pain, and even the fear aroused by that ghastly deed. And yet as Christians, while we react as ordinary human beings, our perspective is modified by our faith in the wisdom, love, and sovereignty of God. While we realize the truth of Proverbs 27:1, it's impossible to "know what a day may bring for th," we can and do commit each day's happenings into the almighty hands of our heavenly Father. Ours can be the attitude of Rober t Louis Stevenson, best known as the author of Treasure Island. He wrote and read to his family a prayer which includes this petition: "When the day returns, call us up with morning faces and morning hear ts, eager to labor, happy if happiness be our por tion, and if the day be marked for sorrow, strong to endure." His step- daughter Isobel Field said how relevant that prayer was: "We awakened on the morning with happy morning faces. . . . That day was marked by sorrow. That day, at the height of his fame, in the best of health he had ever enjoyed, Louis went out of this life suddenly, quietly, painlessly." Daily, then, let us pray those words which Stevenson wrote, depending on God to provide whatever strength is needed. -VCG, 2001 DECEMBER 17