I have to admit that I like war movies. Such as Saving Private Ryan, The Flag of Our Fathers, Iwo Jima, Schindler’s List, The Pianist, etc. I also like watching documentary on wars. The closer to reality the movie or the documentary, the better in my mind.

Why? It brings me reality. Although the stories in those movies are embellished and modified or even fictionalized in most cases, the war itself is real. WWII produced 70 million dead. It lasted 6 years. That results in 32,000 people dead per DAY! For comparison, about 3000 died on 9/11. If you want this to really impact you, go to the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. See mounds of human hair, teeth, brushes, gas chambers, cyanide canisters, pictures of dead children…

This inevitably brings me to a thought: Why wasn’t I born during that time in Japan, for example? Why wasn’t I born in Poland which would’ve meant a certain death early. Why wasn’t I a Jew in Austria? Why wasn’t I one of millions of Russians who died of starvation?

Then, I think about the life I have here in the U.S. in the 21st century. I woke up from a foam mattress next to my wife in a heated room.I stepped onto the carpeted floor. I washed my face in warm water and drank filter-purified water. I ate cereal with cold milk out of my refrigerator. I took my daughter to school in a heated automobile. Now, I’m sitting in Starbucks, sipping on coffee, writing this devotional…

Are you kidding me? Why should I be so privileged? What possible complaints could I ever lodge against God? I should’ve waken up in hell! Either that or fearing for my life in a foxhole fighting frostbites!

I become very afraid at such thoughts! The thought echoes in my head: “What have you done with your privileges? What have you done with the freedom that millions have fought to give you? What have you done as the most privileged citizen of the entire history of the world?”

“There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” Rom 8:1 is all I can claim…

Rejoice your name is written in the book of life!
Rejoice you didn’t wake up in hell this morning which you and I deserved!
Rejoice you weren’t born a Jew earlier last century.
Rejoice you had something to eat this morning.
Rejoice you have a device on which to read this!
Rejoice!

PH