It Might Have Come Off
From his new vantage point Captain Crisp looked over a scene of destruction not more than five hundred yards distant. Columns of smoke billowed up from four of his disabled tanks. Three others were immobile and abandoned. A line of German anti-tank guns and their crews lined the drop-off that he had just gone over. Men were running about among the vehicles. He saw groups of his own men herded together by gesticulating Germans. It all made him sick at heart:
Was there nothing I could do? My mind moved round the prospect of a sudden charge into that line of anti-tank guns, over-running them before they could get their sights on me. If I had had a gunner to fire the Browning, perhaps I might have. As it was I was grateful for the opportunity of rejecting it as impossible, and so prolonging my life and those of my crew. But who knows? It might have come off.154
I will always remember one notable occasion when I had to make a somewhat similar decision in the heat of combat. Could I take the hill or not? I decided not, undoubtedly saving many lives, not to mention my own. Through the years I have wrestled with my conscience over that decision. I have to admit that I was also grateful for the opportunity of rejecting an action that seemed impossible. I strongly identify with the doubts of this British officer in another war. Since becoming a Christian I have come to believe strongly that God protected me on that day and during many dangerous times when I was not a Christian. This is an essential element of my faith. My spiritual life is motivated by gratitude for his faithfulness in blessing me even while I was blind to him.
This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
—1 John 4:10