Daily Verse | Job 13:15a
Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him.

It’s Memorial Day 2021, a national day set aside to remember and honor those who laid down their lives to defend and to perpetuate our freedoms. Those who have died on the battlefield, as Lincoln said in his Gettysburg Address, “gave the last full measure of devotion.” They had no more to give.

Occasionally such sacrifice has to be made. Thomas Jefferson once wrote that “[t]he tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” We too often forget that our ease has been purchased with blood and violence.

Freedom is not our natural state. It must be zealously guarded, sometimes fought for, and never be taken for granted.

I wonder if the spirit of Lincoln’s speech still resides somewhere in the hearts of Americans:

“It is for us, the living to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they have, thus far, so nobly carried on. It is for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us. That from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion.

“That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Take a moment today to remember, to be grateful, and to personally resolve that those who have died defending our freedoms have not died in vain.