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HANGING ON FOR DEAR LIFE #3

IN MATRIMONY AND IN MISSION

Can you still "cling" to a spouse after a two-week fight? Or when pregnancy stretch marks take their toll? Or when someone right out of a Victoria's Secret catalog walks by? In both marriage and our Christian walk, the Bible teaches the power and virtue of clinging to the original Friend.

In his huge bestseller, The Greatest Generation, Tom Brokaw tells some marvelous stories about men and women from the World War II era who knew something about "clinging." I'm sure many war brides spent those hard years clinging to the hope that their man would come home from the war theater. Brokaw's own mom went to the hairdresser one day — it happened to be June 6, 1944. Recognize the date? And the hairdresser, just a young kid, was beside herself, almost collapsing in fear. Her fiancé was over there, taking part in the invasion. Was there any chance he'd survive? Well, he did get through that hail of German bullets without being hit; a few weeks later he mailed her his parachute and told her, "Okay, honey, you can make a wedding dress out of this!" Of course, many, many other soldiers weren't so lucky, and then the teenaged widows had to cling to the memories and the black-and-white photos, as they wordlessly put that gold star in their window: "Killed In Action."

Interestingly, Brokaw devotes an entire section in his book, 40 whole pages, to the statistical reality that this generation was one that knew how to cling to their promises as well. He titles it "Love, Marriage, and Commitment," and writes in quiet awe about how the men and women who served in World War II, who were faithful as American citizens, were also able to hang on to the pledges they made at the marriage altar. Dr. Charles O. Van Gorder was a 31-year-old captain in the U.S. Army Medical Corps who survived that same Normandy invasion. He was flown in on a glider at 4:00 a.m.; by 9:00 a.m. they were up and running with a kind of MASH unit right in the center of the storm. In the years that ensued, his wife Helen had to experience the loss of her firstborn. Her two brothers, Canadian citizens, volunteered to serve with the Americans, and both were killed. Later, her son Chuck went over to Vietnam and he was injured — ironically, while serving his country in his dad's old unit, the 101st Airborne.

And when Chuck asked her one day, "Mom, how'd you get through all that emotional turmoil?", here's the answer she gave.

"Since I was a little girl I've had trust in the Lord. I had faith it would all work out."

And secular journalist Tom Brokaw writes, with awe in his voice and pen:

"It did work out for the Van Gorders because they did keep their faith in their God, in each other, and in the belief that life is all about helping others. They passed that along to their two daughters and their surviving son." Then he adds this P.S.: "That's another legacy of the World War II generation, the strong commitment to family values and community. They were mature beyond their years in their twenties, and when they married and began families it was not a matter of thinking ‘Well, let's see how this works out . . .'"

You've heard all the jokes about brides who get married so casually they double the wedding cake recipe and freeze half for the next time, but not here. These people knew how to hang on to their promises, hold fast to their vows. Tom Brokaw makes this sweeping statement:

"It was the last generation in which, broadly speaking, marriage was a commitment and divorce was NOT an option. . . . Of all the new marriages in 1940, [only] one in six ended in divorce. By the late 1990s, that number was one in two."

Peggy and John Assenzio were a couple of Brooklyn kids who got married one month after Pearl Harbor. He was shipped off with the 118th Combat Engineers, clearing minefields in the war zone. She taught in a Catholic school back home, volunteered for the Red Cross, and writing her beloved John a letter every single day of the entire war. She had a superstition that a letter a day would keep him alive. "You bet I got to know the men in the post office," she laughed later. Sixty-plus years later now, they're still married, and with a spunky smile she tells Brokaw their secret:

"Young couples these days ‘don't fight long enough. It's too easy to get a divorce. We've had our arguments, but we don't give up. When my friends ask whether I ever considered divorce I reminded them of the old saying "We've thought about killing each other, but divorce? Never."'"

Well, friend, it's great reading, and these stories translate beautifully into the arena of Christian fidelity. What does it mean to cling to God, as our theme text in Psalm 31:6 expresses? It means to hang on to that person you love all the time. When the bombs are falling and in peacetime. When things go well and when they don't. When something or someone comes along who appears to be more attractive or exciting than the person you promised. God knows precisely what it feels like when one of His beloved children runs off with a new boyfriend. That's exactly why the Bible has God describing Himself as "jealous." Because someone He treasures is out seeing a new love. King David, in this verse of Psalms, says, "I hate it when people cling to their useless idols. I have decided, [God], to cling to You." That's almost word-for-word what the Lord says too, back in Deuteronomy 32:21:

"They made Me jealous by what is no god and angered Me with their worthless idols."

Could we say here that "clinging" needs to be a full-time priority, a 24/7 decision? That's certainly how the Assenzios got through for 60 years. In the wonderful biography, Ruth — A Portrait, author Patricia Cornwell tells how a young bride promised her preacher husband that she would never leave or forsake him, that his people would be her people, and his God her God.

"It was a partnership of permanence," she writes, "its vows so sacred that Ruth would never remove, for even a MOMENT, the thin gold band that Billy [Graham] slipped on her finger."

Of course, a bit of gold doesn't guarantee that a person will faithfully "cling." But friend, that's been almost 60 years. And the very interesting parallel is this: the Grahams, faithful as they have been in their marriage, have clung to the Lord Jesus Christ with even more tenacity. I mentioned in our study yesterday that a Christian can really just "cling" — in a salvation sense, in terms of eternity — to one thing. It can't be Jesus Christ plus some other rope of rescue. And you know, just as Billy Graham has faithfully spurned all other would-be lovers in his holy matrimony, he has done the same thing in his service to the Master. This same writer, Patricia Cornwell — and it's interesting that most of the time she writes rather salty murder mysteries — pens some very reverent reflections about this devout Christian couple. Here's what she says about Pastor Graham's dedication to his calling:

"Though no one offered Billy a [mink] coat" — as June Carter Cash once tried to give Ruth — "he had plenty of other rewards to resist and always would. In the late fifties, he rejected NBC's offer of a million dollars a year to host a two-hour Sunday morning talk show. He said no to Paramount Pictures Corporation executives who wanted to make him a movie star. He declined ABC's offer of a starting salary of $150,000 if he would serve as a consultant, and he donated personal gifts, such as prime real estate in Florida and California, to the BGEA [Billy Graham Evangelistic Association] and Wheaton College. A year's lease of a private jet and pilot were refused, and he donated about half of his estimated five-hundred-thousand-dollar family inheritance to various Christian organizations."

Would it be easy, when offered a million bucks a year IN THE 1950s, to say, "No, thank you. I've chosen to cling to the gospel of Jesus as my financial lifeline. Not NBC"? Over and over in his work, Graham also had wealthy benefactors say: "Let me just underwrite you. Let me cover the whole thing, write one annual check to sustain your work." And Billy turned down those millionaire proposals because he felt it was better to not only trust in the Lord, but to have a vast but simple army of $10 and $15 and $25 donors who were similarly learning to "cling" to the promises of heaven also.

You know, these stories really inspire me to want to tighten my grip on the things that really count. To cling to Jesus with everything I've got; to hold onto the promises of heaven, not casually, not as a country-club Christian, but with raw, "Here I stand; I can do no other" determination.

Over in the closing pages of the Bible, we find just a bit more about clinging. Only seven words, but they tell us about the saints of God in the very last days of time — the final generation, as it were. God's name is written on their foreheads, and the Bible has a nice way of describing them as a dedicated, perfectly loyal group "of 144,000." People "redeemed from the earth." But what are the seven words which describe how they cling? Here they are:

"They follow the Lamb wherever He goes."

That's all. Nothing more grandiose than that. Elsewhere there are trumpets and clouds of smoke and "Holy, Holy, Holy." But here are just seven words about people who have learned to cling to Jesus: "They follow the Lamb wherever He goes."

Friend, I want to tighten my grip and be in that number. How about you?