“What are you willing to take a bullet for?” That is the bold question/phrase that sticks in my head from a conference talk given by Michael Card, amazing Jesus-junkie author and singer songwriter. What are you willing to take a bullet for – or a bomb – or even willing to bite your tongue? He said he was willing to take it for the Gospel’s sake but NOT necessarily other causes – he knew to hold true to the Gospel truth but don’t get caught up in the world – to really really think about what you get up in anger for… Otherwise, we are to remember WHOM we work for – God – and we are to be spreading the love and the knowledge of Jesus – acknowledging the Holy Spirit to move us – knowing that Jesus is our Rock (Psalm 18:2). We are to live spreading love and kindness. We are also to be sheltering in God’s love when we do have to step out in danger. God shelters us – we should shelter ONLY in God. When everything else seems shaky – God is our Strength.

I think that in the world today (and forever in the past which had it’s horrors too) that we are to be patient and working in LOVE. So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. James 1

I had such peace on vacation – I did NOT feel like I was stepping out into danger when on vacation – I mean there are bad areas everywhere in this world – and we can stick with the touristy ones and be OK – and we can stick with family and be OK. I was OK and I loved being on vacation. I had such peace that I was supposed to be there and to connect and to enjoy and to rest in less worry and more watching.

It was and is surreal to simply be and be on vacation and also be able to know that home was OK and be able to come home. One of the amazing things that I collected on vacation was memories – of family and places – of being in the historic places – and imagining their plights. And connections – I continued to collect new connections to family of old ties.

And one of my cousins sent me a documented memoir of her distant relative – who was in the forced labor for the war machine.

I can’t really imagine war that bad – can only imagine due to stories – because we live in a land fairly peaceful – well very peaceful compared to other flare ups in the world right now – and those in old times – especially in the midst of the WW2 scenes described in this memoir. He wrote of forced labor of men from neighboring countries pulled in to support the axis war machine – info which is easily shared and distributed today but would have been made into a problem during the war itself – if that person spoke up it would have been fuel for punishment and worse.  The horrors of war are imaginable by some and known to far too many. I will include some excerpts of his memoir at the bottom of this blog. Oh how we are best to share love over war – war is complicated and all that. And LOVE is DIVINE – Love is what we need to share and to teach. I can not comment on uprisings and when one becomes a martyr for a cause – it is so very very complicated and there are many many tears. All I know is to keep sheltering in God, He leads.

On my guided tour of a city in the middle of Austria, after visiting the castle, we stopped on the main bridge and I took a quick photo of an embankment’s entrance that was labelled – the tour guide stated that this was an air raid shelter built during WW2 – and built by concentration camp and labor workers chosen for their skill sets. WOW. We did not enter it but I found some info on the web – there were political prisoners (mostly from being inhabitants of the invaded countries) who were forced in these work camps to build up the axis war machine and it was even envisioned that new copies of cities would be recreated in these neighboring countries. The prisoners built this air-raid shelter which now has a “tunnel of remembrance” museum. We did not enter the tunnel but I can imagine through photos. Separately on this trip, I was in many underground locales – including a restaurant that had cellars down to roman-built era stone walls and a water well – covered now – and the underground tunnel cave cellar was used to hide from attacks by the invasions in 1520’s and 1680’s. Yeah – old wars – always part of our history. And sheltering? Always a part of our needs.

We need to shelter today and all days in the love of the Lord – we need to know that God is covering us with His wings even in the midst of tragedy.

My extended family was touched by those unthinkable levels of war – some like my own ancestors left before the wars of their time flared up – left before WW1 even – but some of the family that remained, and many of the people at that time were unwillingly drafted into war preparations and into the political prisoner camps simply because they lived where they lived.

In Europe, the history lessons are immense and full of forever conflicts – uprisings cataloged from the 1600’s to 1800’s were intense and in the 1900’s, less than one hundred years ago, they flared up again, including many people who got taken up as political prisoners like my distant relative but with some local freedoms to live too – a false sense of security – he was forced to work in the north in a factory – these were labor camps but since he was a skilled worker he did not suffer the same cruelties as worse off people of the time. In the memoir, he mentions the work they did was in a former engineering and iron foundry – a small factory – there were other prisoners from his region and surrounding areas that also were highly skilled. They were made to work from 1943 to 1945. He escaped during the 1945 air-raid bombings led by the allied forces. 

He said that “the years 1943 and 1944 passed quite peacefully, worked 10 hours a day and on Saturdays until 1 pm.” They attended local museums and sights and even concerts. He said that near their factory was an old gothic church, where hundreds of people took refuge during the air raid and were buried there in the ruins. He stated that on the evening of the first raids that he “went to the train station to send a box home (it never arrived). In front of the train station, I saw hundreds of refugees, from the East, fleeing from the advancing army. I returned to the camp in the factory. At about 10 o’clock in the evening, there was an air raid on the outskirts, which we watched from the window… planes arrived in two waves. By then we were in the shelter on the outskirts of the factory.”

He got to a shelter – they surely knew war was coming and they built these shelters – and he got into a shelter. Oh may we also know when the horrors of war are coming and get into God’s almighty shelter.

He continued: “We heard the bombs falling near and far, one so close that the shelter shook and sand poured. I sat and waited, shoes on, a light coat on, a briefcase with some food and a razor in my hand. How would it turn out? Some knelt and prayed.” … “It took a long time, it gradually passed like a summer storm. Finally there was calm, we climbed out of the shelter through the damaged entrance. Our four-story factory building was in ruins, the rubble was about two meters high. Everything we had in the camp was gone.” … “After the disaster it was clear that no one would watch over us, so several of us decided to leave immediately. Others stayed there and survived two more days of day and night air raids. We only heard it on the way home.”

OH – ‘on the way home’ – isn’t that the best calling – to be living and walking with the Lord – we are going on our way home and we do see and will see the horrors of the day – but we are to keep walking.

He continued: “We had only just seen the devastation on the street. Caused by fragmentation and incendiary bombs. Time bombs exploded in front of us and behind us. The houses on both sides of the street only had perimeter walls, through the windows you could see everything being demolished – all the floors from the roof had caved in. A water pipe had been torn out on the street, water was flowing. Time bombs exploded in front and behind, but we still continued to the edge of the city. We passed through unharmed, but the sight was terrible.”

I will have to read more of his memoir – but just to summarize – they walked and took trains, met up where relatives were – and just got out of there and went back home.

Thank God – going home saved him and allowed for family to be born after him that allowed me to go back and meet this family – and know connection and know plight – and know sheltering – and know blessings of living to tell stories.

This is where I connect to an immensely powerful scripture in James 1 – to learn and to persevere through trials – and to shelter – and to know – and to wait. and while waiting – do the perfecting that God wants to do in you. Don’t wait and wallow – but wait in perfecting workings in you to have that faith that God wants you to have that He is in control. 

Let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting.

And if we have the peace of the moment right now in prosperity – let us remember how rich we are and to not gloat but to remember our fragileness: Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation, but the rich in his humiliation, because as a flower of the field he will pass away…

And if we have war or we see war – let us shelter in God’s love and grace and be patient: So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

AMEN

—

James 1 NKJV

Greeting to the Twelve Tribes
James, a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,
To the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad: Greetings.

Profiting from Trials
My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

The Perspective of Rich and Poor
Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation, but the rich in his humiliation, because as a flower of the field he will pass away. For no sooner has the sun risen with a burning heat than it withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beautiful appearance perishes. So the rich man also will fade away in his pursuits.

Loving God Under Trials
Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.

Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.

Qualities Needed in Trials
So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

Doers—Not Hearers Only
Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.

If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless. Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.