There Is Hope for Our Future

My lifelong friend Chaplain Mike Sproul posted this on his Facebook page today.  He has granted me permission to share it with you.  [KSchaal].

Yesterday, my son-in-law and grandson went with me as we visited four Civil War battlefields: Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, The Wilderness, and Spotsylvania Court House.

We stood next to the brick wall by the sunken road on the hill overlooking Fredericksburg where the Confederates poured shot and shell into Union lines as they marched 1000 yards in open fields (18,000 Americans died in three days of fighting there,) then stood on the spot where the Confederate pickets shot their second most beloved General, by mistake, Stonewall Jackson, likely costing them what could have been a Civil War ending victory at Chancellorsville as Jackson was preparing a night attack into the Union right flank that was nearly unprotected. (Arguably the most incredible tactical victory in the history of warfare was won by Lee and Jackson at Chancellorsville as Hooker [Union General] had 134,000 troops to Lee’s [Confederate General] about 65,000. Outnumbered and out-gunned Lee sent Jackson on a long all night march around the Union right flank, if Hooker had understood what Lee was doing, his 134,000 could have fallen on Lee’s 35,000 and ended the Civil War on that day, but he didn’t and Jackson hit Hooker’s left flank and was within two miles of trapping Hooker’s army between Lee’s “anvil” and Jackson’s “hammer,” when he was shot accidentally by his own men.)

Having Jackson seven weeks later at Gettysburg in July of 1863, would have changed that battle tremendously, first of all, because most of the Union Army would have been killed or captured at Chancellorsville and secondly because Jackson was a such a genius tactical commander.) Then we stood at the The Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court where over three weeks in May of 1864, 60,000 Americans died in the first direct contact of Grant vs. Lee.

I say all this to make this point. We are nowhere near as divided today as we were 160 years ago. At that time a nation of 30 million lost anywhere between 600,000 to 900,000 dead or missing in four years. That does not count the wounded both mentally and physically. This year, 2020, has been difficult. Today, we are a nation of 335,000,000. That’s ten times larger than during the Civil War. We would have to lose 6,000,000+ in a war to equal the percentage of the population lost in the Civil War. (By comparison in WWII the US lost a little over 400,000.)

We, as a nation have been through much worse situations…the 1918 Spanish flu killed at least 50,000,000 worldwide and 675,000 in the US with a population at that time of 103,000,000 and a world population of 1.5B. That pandemic by the percentage of loss is far worse than our current pandemic, yet, very few people living today even know about the 1918-1919 pandemic because the next ten years were known as the “Roaring 20s,” the 30s was the Great Depression, and the 40s was World War II.

I have great hope for the future. We have many problems spiritually, morally, politically, etc. in our nation today. But my hope is not in any man-made system or any man, but rather in the One who created and sustains me. If my hope was only in human government, human systems, or frankly, in any human, I would be miserable. But my hope is in the Lord! (Psalm 42 and 43) Have a wonderful Lord’s Day today…the last of 2020! God is good all the time and all the time, God is good.

Col. Sproul is an FBFI Chaplain serving as the Director of the Air National Guard Chaplain Corps at the Air National Guard Readiness Center.