Winston Churchill was always a busy man, but he was never more busy than the early days of World War II. Throughout the war, Churchill often worked 18 hour days. Any given day might include meetings with Parliament, military leaders, the King, foreign leaders, and more.
One August day in 1940, with the Battle of Britain in full swing, Churchill spent time in an RAF Operations Room listening to the personal stories of the pilots and watching the battle updates on the map table. General Hastings Ismay, who was with Churchill, wrote, “There had been heavy fighting throughout the afternoon; and at one moment every single squadron in the Group was engaged; there was nothing in reserve … I felt sick with fear.”
The British losses were not particularly steep that day. But Churchill left visibly affected and asked Ismay for silence in the car ride back, saying “I have never been so moved.” After five minutes had passed, Ismay wrote, “[Churchill] leaned forward and said, ‘Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few.’ The words burned into my brain and I repeated them to my wife when I got home. Churchill too, had evidently photographed them in his mind; for as everyone knows, he used them in a speech that was heard throughout the world.”1
That speech, known as The Few, is one of Churchill’s masterpieces and served to bolster confidence in the British war efforts as the country stood alone against Hitler and the Nazis. Ismay’s account of that day suggests that Churchill’s care for the lives of his country’s pilots and his time of silent reflection produced one of the most famous lines in the history of oration.
Churchill was on an island surrounded by a powerful enemy, facing daily attack daily not only literally from the air but also politically from factions within his own country. He worked an unreal number of hours each day, yet he took time for what he cared about. He didn’t need to visit the operations room, listen to stories from pilots, sit in silent reflection, or put in the thought to craft a beautiful sentence. He certainly had plenty of excuses not to do any of those things. But he did, and that is part of what made him a great man in the history of the modern era.
We, too, take time for what we care about. But we are far too quick to make excuses when it comes to our devotion to God’s word. Something as simple as taking five minutes—the length of time Churchill sat in silence, according to Ismay—to read the Bible each day falls by the wayside because… well, because of what exactly?
I’m too busy. I didn’t get enough sleep. I slept through my alarm. I’m taking care of littles. My baby doesn’t sleep. Work has been crazy. I’m just too tired after a long day. Moving, vacation, summer, new semester, new job has thrown my schedule out…
There’s always a reason not to read Scripture.
The psalmist understood this better than anyone. He wrote,
Even though princes sit plotting against me,
your servant will meditate on your statutes.
—Psalm 119:23
Think about the built-in excuse he has. The psalmist—if not David, then surely a Davidic king—has world leaders scheming to overthrow him. Like David, or Churchill for that matter, he has powerful foreign enemies as well as those within his own country who seek his downfall. He is taunted (v. 42), derided (v. 51), ensnared by enemies (v. 61), attacked with lies (v. 69, 78), and persecuted (v 84, 86). “They have almost made an end of me on earth” (v. 87), he concludes.
His troubles are not only external, but internal as well. “My soul clings to the dust” (v. 25), he says, “My soul melts away for sorrow” (v. 28). He has experienced injustice (v. 126) and oppression (v. 134). This is a man who has known difficulty: “Trouble and anguish have found me out” (v. 143). Many of these troubles have been of his own making: “I have gone astray like a lost sheep” (v. 176).
If anyone has an excuse to skip devotions, it is this man.
His life is hard. But vows to meditate on God’s statutes.
“Even though…
- princes sit plotting against me…
- my soul melts away for sorrow…
- trouble and anguish have found me out…
- I have gone astray like a lost sheep…
- people lied about me on social media…
- I lost my job…
- finals are next week…
- we got in a fight last night…
- I’m just so tired and can’t focus…
- my to-do list has a million things on it…
- we’ve been travelling…
- my hormones are out of whack…
- I never get any “me” time…
… your servant will meditate on your statutes.”
For the psalmist, what seems like a legitimate excuse actually becomes the starting point for his devotional life.
Jesus, as the fulfillment of everything written in the Psalms (Luke 24:44), is the perfect realization of this. During the very moments the Jewish leaders were plotting against him, took time to meet with his Father in Gethsemane.2 In that time, like the psalmist, he experienced sorrow (Matthew 26:37), “even to death” (v. 38; c.f. Psalm 119:87). He was about to be captured, falsely accused, and unjustly persecuted. He would be taunted and derided, physically assaulted, and contemptibly murdered by the powers arrayed against him.
If anyone needed a little sleep, a little “me time,” it would have been Jesus. Yet he made time for what he cared about: He invited his best friends to come with him and commune with his Father.
The friends would fail—after all, they needed their sleep—but Christ’s prayers were sufficient for them, too (see John 17). Peter, James, and John did not grasp the significance of what was happening. Like Ismay with Churchill, they did not yet have eyes to see what their leader saw. But that would come.
Will it come for us? For the psalmist, the powerful forces working against him would not serve as an excuse for not studying the word, but rather a reason for it. The result of his commitment to delight in Scripture (v. 24) is not only one of the most famous chapters in the Bible, but also blessedness (v. 1-2), purity (v. 9), life (v. 25), strength (v. 28), comfort (v. 50), and a taste for the sweetness of the word of God (v. 103).
Friend, Jesus succeeded where we have failed. He saw the necessity of leaning on his Father when we could only plead fatigue. He bore every sin, every failure, every apathy of ours and triumphed to send his Spirit to give us new hearts and empower us to follow in his footsteps. As you look to Jesus, may he take every excuse and turn it into a reason to commune with him in his word.
“Even though princes sit plotting against me, your servant will meditate on your statutes.”
Churchill took a few minutes in an operations bunker and turned them into one of the most famous statements from WWII.
The psalmist took the schemes of his enemies and turned them into a reason to read Scripture.
Jesus took the hours devoted to sleep and turned them into the prayers that prepared him for the salvation of the world.
What’s your excuse reason to meditate on God’s word today?
Notes
