The story goes that, not long after his death, President Abraham Lincoln’s secretaries found in his papers a few notes he’d scribbled under the heading, “Meditations on the Divine Will.”
“The will of God prevails," he said. "In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God cannot be for, and against, the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war is quite possible that God’s purpose is somewhat different from the purpose of either party – and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect this.”
His words put me in mind of Joshua, in the Bible. Walking alone with his thoughts on the eve of the great battle of Jericho, he encounters “the Commander of the host of the Lord,” His sword drawn. Joshua asks, understandably, whose side He is on.
To which the Commander replies, in effect, “That’s not the question.”
The question, He says, is “who is on the Lord’s side?”
At which point Joshua, properly chastened, falls to his face and takes off his sandals, recognizing that he is on holy ground.
I pray. I am numb inside from the weeks and months of praying, and the words have grown blurry and hardly seem to matter now. I have no sixth sense or premonition or inkling or hunch. There is only the thunder of a distant storm drawing near. And the words of an old man I heard praying tonight, his voice quivering: “Thank you, Lord, for hearing my prayer.”
Years ago, I heard a woman tell of how, as a small child, she was terrified of lightning and thunder. A storm would come, in the depths of the night, and the thunder would yank her bolt upright out of sleep to crouch, shivering, in her bed. Lightning flashed, and she leapt from the bed, running for her parents’ room and sanctuary. But as she ran, the darkness plunged down around her – and with it, the awful roar of the thunder.
So she stood in the dark hallway, trembling, ‘til the lightning came again.
“All these years later,” she said, “I still remember how it feels to wait eagerly for the thing you’re scared to death of.”
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