Is It All Up To Me?

   Last night I was watching a lecture on the U.S. Constitution, and the speaker quoted a passage from the first Inaugural Address of Ronald Reagan. He had been talking about those men and women who were buried in Arlington National Cemetery when he spoke these lines:

 Under one such marker lies a young man—Martin Treptow—who left his job in a small town barber shop in 1917 to go to France with the famed Rainbow Division. There, on the western front, he was killed trying to carry a message between battalions under heavy artillery fire.

We are told that on his body was found a diary. On the flyleaf under the heading, “My Pledge,” he had written these words: “America must win this war. Therefore, I will work, I will save, I will sacrifice, I will endure, I will fight cheerfully and do my utmost, as if the issue of the whole struggle depended on me alone.”

   I was struck by that last phrase " as if the issue of the whole struggle depended on me alone".

   Here was a boy, in a really insignificant position, in the middle of a great conflict with many men around him, who determined to do his best, regardless of his job, because doing that best could make the difference that won the war. He was killed trying to take a message to another unit. Evidently he failed in his task, as the words say "he was trying". Is it necessary to succeed in order to win, or is it the attitude of how we try, the important thing?

   Are there things out there that I need to step up and do? Sometimes it is easier to let the anonymity of belonging to a group, large or small, mask my individual effort. If the group fails, well, it was the group, not me individually. This group can be as large as a country, or as small as a marriage. It can encompass a church, a ministry, or a family. Whatever I am involved with is a part of my responsibility.

   At the end of Reagan's address were these words:

   "with God’s help, we can "

   Is it all up to me in my own strength? The psalmist says in Psalm 121:

   " I look up to the mountains; does my strength come from mountains? 
   No, my strength comes from God, 
      who made heaven, and earth, and mountains.

   Let me live it out in that way.