2 weeks ago as I sat in the office of my lawyer, he showed me a photocopy of a handwritten letter from Abraham Lincoln that was written to my lawyer’s great-great uncle. The uncle happened to be the president of the University of Pennsylvania at that time. He was involved in writing a pamphlet on the furtherance of this country. Lincoln commended the man for the pamphlet and thanked him for his great insight into the betterment of this country. What a privilege it was to see the actual handwriting of one of our greatest presidents.
When he was in his thirties, Abraham Lincoln went through some dark days. Instead of the personal and professional success he had hoped for, he was facing financial struggles. According to some, he even broke off a romantic relationship because of those difficulties.
On January 23rd, 1841, Lincoln wrote this to a friend, “I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on earth. Whether I shall ever be better I cannot tell. I awfully forebode I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible. I must die or be better, it appears to me.” No doubt Lincoln would have said in 1841 that he had faced the hardest thing of his life, but within 20 years, he would confront the far more difficult days of leading a divided country at war.
We, too, can look back to hard days that we've experienced, but we don't know what lies ahead. How do we know what suffering is coming our way? We don't. But as we will see in John's writing and in Jesus's words, Jesus has already secured victory for us, no matter what we face. How privileged we are to have a Savior who has won the war for us.