O! Say Can You See?

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones. (Proverbs 3:5-8 ESV).

Memorial Day this year reminded me of the importance of a strong national commitment. I guess I naturally went to our anthem for inspiration today. The Star Spangled Banner, written by Francis Scott Keys as he looked at the flag flying over the battle at Ft. McHenry has become one of the nation’s best-loved patriotic songs. The flag itself is enshrined at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. It gained special significance during the Civil War, a time when many Americans turned to music to express their feelings for the flag and the ideals and values it represented. By the 1890s, the military had adopted the song for ceremonial purposes, requiring it to be played at the raising and lowering of the colors. Despite its widespread popularity, “The Star-Spangled Banner” did not become the National Anthem until 1931. The anthem isn’t present in all or even most hymnals. Those that contain this patriotic song consider it a hymn; and, the ones that don’t apparently consider it a secular song. Yet, before we’re too quick to judge it as a song exalting a war-time footing that has no place in the Christian world, there’s something you should know. There is a second verse in the hymnals we never sing. Most people don’t even know there’s a second verse at all. There are actually four stanzas, only two of which show up in our hymnals and one of which we sing. The last stanza is most instructive: O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation. Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation! Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust.’ And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave! Does it strike you as strange that our national anthem touts “And this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust’ and yet we find it so popular to deny God in most of our public national life. Our reading today is so clear in the wisdom of trusting God whether as an individual or a nation. Perhaps we all could use a reminder in whom we should be trusting.