I was in Junior High school during World War Two and followed all battles, using pins in a world map to follow
it. What I didn’t know until years later, was that the Japanese lost the war just six months after it started, although
they wouldn’t quit until all hope was lost three years later.
As briefly as I can recount…when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, you could compare us to David and
Goliath, literally. The Japanese had been fighting China for years and had battle-tested fighter planes that could fly circles
around our best. We had no battle training while they were veterans at killing. We still thought the battleship was king,
while the Japanese knew this would essentially be won or lost in the air, and had us outlandishly outmanned in every way.
And they planned the Battle of Midway just six months into the war, which could be a springboard to Hawaii and even our West
Coast.
As the Japanese neared Midway Island, we located them and sent torpedo planes at their carriers and every
one of them was shot down with no hits. All seemed lost…a total waste…
a lost cause as our inexperienced boys crashed into the ocean.
But no…when they attacked, the Japanese planes flying protection above the Japanese ships came down
to help destroy our boys, and at that moment, our dive bombers arrived and within minutes had destroyed three of the four
Japanese carriers heading for Midway, and when all was said and done, a prediction made earlier by the leader of this armada,
Yamamoto, came true. He had said that if they didn’t beat us in six months, they would never beat us. And it came true.
When Christ died on the cross, it seemed to be another lost cause, but it only strengthened Christianity and
kept it going. Because without his fulfilling prophecy by coming back to life for us, the words “Christ” and “Christians”
would not be in our vocabulary, and we would still be lost in sin, making daily sacrifices trying to get by on our works.
Talk to the Lord and tell Him “thanks” for what he was, and is, and will be…our hope for eternity.
