Treasure from Trouble

Will grace to you in peace be multiplied through Jesus Christ our Lord.

In the years leading up to the Second World War, the British government was worried. If in the event of war the German Air Force launched a major air offensive against London, the British military command believed that there was nothing they could do to stop it.

Basil Liddell Hart, one of the foremost military theorists of the day, estimated that in the first week of any German attack, London could see a quarter of a million civilian deaths and injuries. Winston Churchill described London as the greatest target in the world, a kind of tremendous fat valuable cow tied up to attract the beast of prey.

He predicted that the city would be so helpless in the face of attack that between 3 and 4 million Londoners would flee to the countryside. In 1937, on the eve of the war, the British military command issued a report with the direst prediction of all.

A sustained German bombing attack would leave 600,000 dead and 1.2 million wounded and create mass panic in the streets. People would refuse to go to work. Industrial production would grind to a halt. The army would be useless against the Germans because it would be preoccupied with keeping order among the millions of panicked civilians.

The country's planners briefly considered building a massive network of underground bomb shelters across London. But they abandoned the plan out of a fear that if they did, the people who took refuge there would never come out. They set up several psychiatric hospitals just outside the city limits to handle what they expected would be a flood of psychological casualties.

There is every chance, the report stated, that this could cost us the war. In the fall of 1940, the long anticipated attack began. Over a period of 8 months, beginning with 57 consecutive nights of devastating bombardment, German bombers thundered across the skies above London, dropping tens of thousands of highly explosive bombs and more than a million incendiary devices.

So what happened when the German blitz began?

Did 3 to 4 million people stream out into the London countryside as Winston Churchill had predicted?

Now I'm going to leave you hanging a little bit with what happened for a purpose.

And the purpose is I want you to feel some tension, and I often like to do that in the messages that I share. But part of the purpose of waiting to share with you the rest of what happened to London is it illustrates somewhat of what I've been sensing in relation to this current crisis.

And I just wanted to talk with you a little bit from my heart about what you're experiencing. Obviously, the limits of technology don't allow you to reply directly to me. But I would like to have a fireside chat for just a minute with you.

You know It's been, I think, 7 weeks since we have been together here at our churchhouse. And that's a long time. A lot has happened. A lot of plans have gotten altered, of course. And not all of the changes have been terrible changes.

Who doesn't enjoy sleeping in a little bit longer on Sunday morning, right? We used to have church events almost every night of the week, it seemed like. And now my wife and I don't even talk about what the layout of the week is anymore as far as our evenings.

It's pretty much the same every night. It's open.

It's been a nice change in the sense that there's gardening to do, there's lots of yard work, and so this time of forced shutdown has come at a good time. I have been about as busy as ever as far as work since my boss applied for a waiver right away. And I'm grateful to have the work. We have lots of work, thank the Lord.

But it has left me wondering about you, our church family. How are you doing? How are you weathering the crisis? Maybe nothing has changed for you. Maybe a lot has changed. And I think different times myself, oh, I'd love to get together with brother so-and-so for some coffee, for breakfast. And of course, we can't do that right now.

But I know that there's the telephone, of course, the cell phones and the opportunity to connect that way. But how are you doing? Are you coming through this stronger? When I think about myself, I like to think I'm a strong person. I would have to echo the words of Anna Greene Gables of all people. I think she said something like this. She said, "I am well in body, but considerably rumpled in spirit."

Maybe you can identify with that.

I know that our children are trying to make sense of some of these things. Caitlin, who is our three and a half year old daughter, her statement the other week was something to the effect of, "We don't go to church where the stones are. We have a gravel parking lot." She said, "We don't go to church where the stones are right now because a lot of people are sick."

And so we're all trying to make sense of this, aren't we? We're trying to figure out what the best approach is, what the best way forward is. And one of the things I've been asking myself lately is, is there some way that we can foster a greater love among the brothers during this time?

I like how the Canadians put it. They don't call it social distancing. They call it physical distancing. And they really emphasize the importance of remaining connected socially.

And so when I think about what lies before us, and part of the problem is we don't know what lies ahead of us, a quote that I've heard and has been rolling around in my mind is that uncertainty is more stressful than bad news. If you get the bad news, at least you know what to expect, but when you don't know what to expect, how do you handle that? And for me, that's created this ongoing tension. Where I wonder, well, how will this be resolved? At what point do we come back together? Is it going to be another 7 weeks? Will it be the fall?

What can we expect from all of this? And part of my concern is I believe this is a testing for us as a brotherhood. And my concern is how will we come through this? Because there are a lot of opportunities for division, for a loss of love in the midst of making these difficult decisions. I'm pretty confident that we're going to have brothers on various sides of the fence in relation to when we should start up and how we should start up. And of course, I think all of our desire is that we be unified. I'm not sure how that's going to happen, but that is my desire.

And so when I think about how are we going to come back together? Are we going to come back in drips and drabs? Are we going to come back guiltily? Are we going to come back with our tail between our legs? My desire, and I'm sure yours is too, is that we would set a date, and maybe the date is way out there, but let's set a date.

At least, you know, 6, 7 days in advance, set a date and say, "This is our Sunday. This is our homecoming where we all come together in a celebratory fashion, where we're excited to be together. We don't feel guilty. We're not worried about what people think, and I think we should take that into account." But you know the struggle is at what point do we make some of these decisions? We want to respect the authorities. We have been respecting the authorities. At what point does that cross over into disrespect for the ultimate authority? And so these are things that we wrestle with. I would probably be more of the mind to say, "Let's push ahead.

Let's just come back together. We've done our duty. We've really tried to love our neighbor. It's time to be together again." But I recognize there are other brothers that are holding back and saying, "We need to be careful about this." And so I'm being candid with you and saying, "I need the brotherhood. I need the wisdom that the collective brotherhood shares."

Because I myself don't know what to do. I know what I'd like to see happen, but I want to see you all. And so how is that supposed to take place? I was reading 2 John just the other day. And when I think about this matter of fostering love and the test that we will face, the test I think we're facing, going to face is, can we maintain and build love for each other, for one another, through our differences and these difficulties?

That's the test. And 2 John addresses this. He says, "To the elect lady and her children whom I love in truth, and not only I, but also all those who have known the truth. Because of the truth which abides in us and will be with us forever.

Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father in truth and love. I rejoice greatly that I have found some of your children walking in truth as we receive commandment from the Father. And now I plead with you, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment to you, but that which we have had from the beginning, that we love one another. This is love, that we walk according to his commandments. This is the commandment that, as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in it." This is a bit cyclical here, what John is telling us, but basically he's saying, you've got the command to love, and when you love, you follow the commandments.

You've got the command to love, and when you love, you follow the commandments. Okay, this feeds itself. He says, "Many deceivers go out into the world. If anyone comes to you that doesn't have the doctrine of Christ, don't receive him." Then in verse 12, he says, "Having many things to write to you, I did not wish to do so with paper and ink, but I hope to come to you and speak face to face that our joy may be full."

John recognized the limits of his technology, which was paper and ink. He said, "At some point, I just have to see you face to face. It just has to happen. There's a lot of things I could share. I could write them. I could email them. I could even speak to them on Zoom. But at some point, the face to face has to happen."

And so I think John recognized the value of in-person togetherness. And so as I think about what we're facing in the next few days and weeks and maybe months, we don't know. I'm 99.9% certain that there will be differences in the brotherhood. But I'm 100% certain that God wants us to love one another and increase in that love as we go through this trying time.

And so that's my encouragement for you. It's a plea. It's a desire of my own heart that I would not lose love in any way through this time of separation, but that I would grow in love and somehow could encourage you to grow in love for the brotherhood as well.

And so this brings me to our message for today, which I've titled "Treasure from Tough Times." Treasure from Tough Times. And I'm going to Matthew 13, which is a well-known chapter for many people. A chapter with many parables. And I'd like us simply to look at a one-verse parable that Jesus shares there. I'm sure you've heard it a number of times.

If you've ever considered digging for buried treasure, this is a very tantalizing story that Jesus shares with us. In Matthew 13:44, Jesus says again, "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid. And for joy over it, he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field."

Now we would say that the parable is fairly straightforward, probably. We've heard this before. We've thought about it before. We can understand that as Shippensburg Christian Fellowship, one of our pillars is kingdom living, kingdom focus, serving the king. And that's wonderful.

And we recognize that the kingdom is so valuable that when we recognize it for what it is, when we stumble across it, or even if we find it having looked diligently for it, it is worth selling or getting rid of or whatever it takes, everything we have to accomplish our ends to be a part of it. It lies hidden from most people's view.

But those who see it for what it is are willing to go to extreme lengths to acquire it. Now, I don't want to get wrapped up in the ethics of finding treasure on somebody else's land and reburrying it and then going and buying it out from under the landowner.

I don't think that was the focus of Jesus' parable. You know, if Joe owns this land and Larry suddenly shows up with a huge sum of money and says, "I'd really like that two acres out back there." I think Joe might get a little suspicious, don't you think? Uh, really? A million dollars for my two acres? Maybe I should have that soil tested first. Uh, let me get back to you on that. So we don't press parables to the nth degree, but there are some definite valuable truths that God gives us, that Jesus has given us through these accounts. And I believe the point Jesus is pushing is that the kingdom of heaven is worth everything and in fact requires us to give up everything, including self, which is probably the hardest thing to let go of.

But the kingdom of heaven is that valuable. You would scour your house. You'd say, "Honey, we don't really need the kitchen table and the chairs, right? I want to yard sale them." That is how this man was operating. And he wasn't doing it begrudgingly. He was doing it joyfully. It's great. I'm cleaning out my house. Let's get rid of all the furniture. Let's get rid of all my books. Let's get rid of the car. I have found the treasure. And I'm thankful that as a church family here, it's been our purpose, our desire to focus on and to seek first the kingdom of heaven.

And so as I've been going through this crisis, as you're going through it, one of the things I've been asking myself is, how can I seek first the kingdom in this time? People have had difficult times before, even a lot more difficult than what we're facing right now, but this is where we find ourselves. So how can I make the most of this time for King Jesus?

And I think it's valuable for us to be asking ourselves the question, not the question, how am I going to get through this? But to ask ourselves the question, what am I going to get through this? Because you see, I firmly believe that every tough time has treasure for us. I firmly believe that. Every difficult thing that we face has something available to us if we're willing to seek for it. There are many people coming through this crisis, the world basically.

And there are people who will either become better by this or they'll become broken by it. The question is, how can we benefit in the midst of going through these difficult times? So if your spiritual metal detector is working, I'd like us to think about some treasure that we can take from these days. First of all, I think of the treasure of maturity.

Treasure of maturity. God has been very clear that his purpose for every one of us is to conform us to the image of Jesus. Now we gladly hold to the doctrine of non-conformity, which means we're resisting the world's design to squeeze us into its mold, into its style.

But the flip side of that is the beautiful truth that we are being squeezed into the likeness of Christ, and that often takes some pressure. It doesn't just tend to happen easily. But conformity is designed to lead to maturity. And we see this in Ephesians 4:14 and 15. It says that we should no longer be children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men and the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting. But speaking the truth in love may grow up in all things into him who is the head, Christ. God's design is for you and for me to grow up. As much as our culture glorifies immaturity and the never, never land, God wants us to grow up.

And then Paul says why it's not good for the body of Christ to be separate from one another for a long period of time. In verse 16, this is the verse right after he says, "From whom the whole body joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love." So you see, it takes the body working together, which I would say requires the body being together, to bring about this edification and growing in love, building itself up. So why is it difficult for us to stir each other up to love right now?

Well, it's because we're not together. It's hard. I don't think it's impossible, but it's difficult. The value of a marriage relationship is the togetherness of the couple. If the couple spends long periods of time apart, and it could be for legitimate reasons, deployment and things like that, it really is difficult for that relationship. And I believe the same is true for the relationship of a church family.

So one of the valuable things about hard times is how it can work maturity in us. You know, there are things that need to happen in us, but won't until something happens to us. And I'm recognizing that in myself as I live in this limbo, this tension of how soon can we get through this? How soon can we get past this? I'm recognizing that I have a problem with resting. I need to rest. Obviously, God's in control. But I need to be comfortable with a certain amount of tension. Life always has some tension.

And there's value in that. But it's revealing things about me that I would not have seen in myself without this kind of crisis. The fact that I completely disagree with different brothers about their views of coming together again is not so much illustrating anything about them, so much as it is illustrating things about what's inside of me.

So we live in a culture that devalues maturity, glories, and immaturity. But it's important for us to regain the value of this character. The character quality maturity is so vital because it helps us to face future crises. And it gives us perspective. It gives us insight that we would not otherwise have without that difficult time.

It's very likely God's allowing things like this to prepare us for even more difficult things in the future. That's how God typically works. And so maturity is a treasure. It's a good thing. It's a God thing. So what are you mining in troubling times? What are you digging out of this? Or are you just laying down the couch, rolling over and saying, "Wake me up when it's over"?

I'm sure you're not. The second treasure I'd like us to consider is the treasure of memories. Memories.

When you think about your favorite Bible stories, we could list them off: Abraham, Moses, Ruth, David, the Shunammite woman, Daniel, Jesus, Peter, Paul. What makes them interesting?

Usually, what makes them interesting are the difficulties they faced and surmounted, right?

It's the tough times that they had, and they stayed true to God. And it's wonderful for us that those memories have been recorded in the Bible so that we can learn from them, appreciate them. That we can gain valuable insight from their experiences. When I think about the patriarchs, I think of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. Think about the amount of material in Genesis. Each one of those three men was given. Who was given the most? Who is given the least?

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Isaac is in the middle there between those three. He really doesn't have a lot of information. He has the providential finding of his wife, Rebecca. He has the Philistine conflict with the wells that his father dug. He has the whole situation of Imelek and Gerar, where Isaac called Rebecca his sister.

But when you look at the amount of things that we know about Isaac, it's a lot less in comparison to Abraham or Jacob or, of course, Joseph. Why is that? I don't know for sure. I think some of it might be that Isaac lived a more normal life. He didn't face all of the big things that Abraham and Jacob necessarily faced, perhaps.

And so I think it's valuable to remember that tough times make people more interesting. I find it that way. When I find a person that has come through a very difficult time, I want to hear what they have to say. I want to hear about their story. It gives them some texture. People that just go through life and everything is easy and they never have to make a difficult decision and it all goes their way.

They're very one-dimensional. I find them rather boring, actually. I can't relate.

And so when I think about you who have made some very difficult wedding decisions, you were already planning to get married, and then you had to completely or majorly alter your wedding plans. That adds some amazing texture to what you experienced. Obviously, it's less than ideal. It's difficult. There's sadness, but I believe you can gain greater and greater appreciation for some of the struggles and choices you made as time goes forward and you have these accounts to share with future generations.

You know, the strange thing about difficulty is how often we look back at it with some fondness, probably because we look back and we say, "Oh, well, I made it through and I'll never have to go through that again."

I explained earlier in the children's lesson that I grew up in a situation where a lot of people would have considered me deprived because we had ice boxes and outhouses and primitive living conditions. No computers, no cell phone, no internet.

Hardly really any connection with the outside world. And there we were, isolated in the boonies of northwestern Ontario at a little place called Poplar Hill. And we didn't have a lot of the typical American necessities. My mindset of a rich person was somebody who had a Unilever faucet for their water. They had wall-to-wall carpeting. They had air conditioning.

As a missionary kid, that was my concept of, "Wow, that's a wealthy person." So you can see how deprived I was. My dad gave up seven prime years of earning time to give his life to overseeing and working at the boarding school there for the Indian students.

But you know I was talking to my dad just a week ago and asking him some questions about his leadership of the school. And again, 30 years 30 years after we were there, my dad is saying to me, "You know, those were some of the best years of my life."

That's amazing. The value of going through difficult times. And really, that's how we all feel, at least my brother, my sister that still remember our time there. I was four when we went. I was 11 when we left.

We all look at those years that were "deprived" as the richest, fullest, best years of our lives in so many ways. In fact, my brother so appreciated his experience that he wanted the very same thing for his family. And he is now serving in northwestern Ontario at a place called Beaver Lake, overseeing a camping ministry for First Nations youth.

We looked at this story called Home in the Woods by Eliza Wheeler. She's written the account of her grandmother who went through five very difficult years in a shack in northern Wisconsin. But you know in the afterward, Eliza talks about how her grandmother, who was still living at the time of this publishing last year, and several other siblings of her who were still living in their 90s, she said how they would get together and they would speak of those difficult years in glowing terms. It just was so meaningful to them and they had such fond memories of those years at the home in the woods.

And so I would encourage you to think about what are some ways you can capture memories as a family during these these tough times. Just before we flew to Niska, which I talked about in the children's lesson, even more remote from where we were living at Poplar Hill, we had started homeschooling.

And my mom made us start journaling as part of our school curriculum. It wasn't anything great. It probably was just about the weather and things like that. But there's something very valuable about just taking time to think about what happened during the day and write a few sentences. And I can assure you that when you look back on your schoolwork, your journal is probably the most valuable thing that you will have in your possession.

So it's a way to capture the treasure of the memories that God gives to us. What sort of memory treasures will you bring out of COVID-19? I was talking to Brother Harvey just before the service and we were exclaiming again about how what are some of the things we're going to be telling our children about way back there in 2020 when the pastor actually asked people not to come to church?

We are definitely going to have some memories to share. Thirdly, I think about the treasure of mercies. The treasure of mercies. Lamentations 3:22 to 23 states, "Though the Lord's through the Lord's mercies, we are not consumed. Because his compassions fail not, they, his mercies are new every morning.

Great is your faithfulness." And the mercies of God really are rich toward us, are they not? I've been counting those mercies, contemplating them over the last few weeks. And here are just a few of the many that we could think about. I've been thinking about the mercies of justice.

Even in the midst of the upheaval of a global pandemic, there is a man who has been tracked down and arrested and jailed, who is purportedly the abductor and murderer of Sasha Kraus. That's encouraging to me. The wheels of God's righteousness continue to move forward.

I think about the mercies of not experiencing evil anymore. I think of the people who passed away before this crisis ever hit. And how merciful God is that they never had to hear about COVID-19 or to face evil anymore.

And I know those are some very difficult things to maybe accept sometimes, especially when the person is young. I have an acquaintance who was married just less than two years and his wife was killed in a tragic car accident just several days before Thanksgiving.

But I think about people like her, like Sasha, like Sister Ella May. They had no idea and never will, except in heaven, about this thing called COVID-19. Why? Because God took them away from the evil. I've thought many times of Isaiah 57:1, "The righteous perishes and no man takes it to heart. Merciful men are taken away while no one considers that the righteous has taken away from the evil." As the kingdom says, they're taken away from the evil to come. And so one of the blessings of going to sleep in Jesus is everything that happens after that doesn't bother the person who has passed away one iota. They're not bothered by evil anymore.

They've been spared from further evil days. I think of the mercies of technology. What if we had faced this very thing 10 or 15 years ago? Was Zoom in existence back then? I don't know. But we have opportunities through the technology that is at our disposal to have some connection like it was never available before. The mercies of technology. The mercies of creativity.

Who would ever considered a church drive-in service or a funeral drive-in service a blessing just eight weeks ago? We would have looked at somebody talking about a drive-in funeral as weird, odd. Completely not our idea of a good funeral. But that's where we find ourselves.

And I think it was such a privilege to gather together just a week ago to plant Brother Virgil's body in the ground and to be together in a special way. You know One of the understandings of the parable of hidden treasure is that the man who found it and sold all he had to gain it is actually Jesus.

That's possible. I really like that concept that Jesus was looking for a bride. He was looking for those to redeem. And he found them and he gave all that he had in order to redeem his bride, the church, to himself. And I like to think about the idea that we've planted people like Sister Ella May, Brother Virgil, and others out there in the field. We've planted them as corrupted treasures, but we're expecting that the man will come along at the right time and raise them as the glorious treasures that they are.

What a great hope we have. I think of the mercies of presence, the mercies of God's presence, the mercies of being present with brothers and sisters. Even in a limited sense, physical presence is such an amazing mercy. And yes, the mercies of God are disguised many times in tough times.

I think of the well-known hymn that William Cooper wrote. God moves in a mysterious way. Verse two, he says, "Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take. The clouds ye so much dread are big with mercy and shall break in blessings on your head." That's our God. He has a way of taking things that we are concerned about, we're anxious about. I really don't like to say that I have anxiety, but I have this tension.

Is that more spiritual? I don't know. But God has a purpose or a way of working out his purposes in such a glorious manner. And so there really is treasures everywhere. The mercies of God are evident all throughout our day as we have the eyes to see them and to receive them.

And the fourth and final treasure that I present to you is the treasure of morale. The treasure of morale. Of the various treasures that we've considered, this is the most unusual and probably counterintuitive one so far. What I mean by this treasure is that we actually come through a difficult time and we are better because of it. We gain a courage, we gain a confidence, we gain a trust in God. We we recognize that rather than being mastered by whatever this is, we have gained mastery. And there is some really great value in that.

It's actually probably the most unexpected of outcomes in relation to the anecdote I shared with you at the beginning of our time together. What I'm sharing with you comes from Malcolm Gladwell's book, David and Goliath, which I certainly don't recommend for any of its purported spiritual insights. But he has a lot of interesting and good thoughts about humanity and how human beings work. You'll recall that I was talking about the experts leading up to World War II were very concerned about London being open to German air attack. And what a serious bombing by the German Air Force would do to the morale or the psyche of the London people.

This is a somewhat lengthy portion, but it is well worth your time, I believe. You recall that in 1937, on the eve of the war, the British military command issued a report with the direest prediction of all. A sustained German bombing attack would leave 600,000 dead and 1.2 million wounded and create mass panic in the streets. And Churchill himself said that he figured it'd be at least three to four million Londoners who would flee to the countryside. We've heard some similar thoughts by the experts and the gurus who are trying to figure out what's going to happen with COVID-19 and how bad that could get.

The thought was that people would refuse to go to work. Industrial production would grind to a halt. The army would be useless against the Germans because they'd be so busy keeping control of their own people, trying to keep millions of panicked civilians in line. So in the fall of 1940, about three years later, the long anticipated attack began.

Over a period of eight months, beginning with 57 consecutive nights of devastating bombardment. Now, we have not been separated of the church family for 57 nights yet. I think it's 49 or something like that. But okay, so 57 consecutive nights of devastating bombardment. German bombers thundered across the skies above London, dropping tens of thousands of high explosive bombs and more than a million incendiary devices. 40,000 people were killed. So a large number, not nearly the number that the experts had predicted, but a large number. And another 46,000 were injured.

A million buildings were damaged or destroyed. In the city's east end, entire neighborhoods were laid waste. It was everything the British government officials had feared, except that every one of their predictions about how Londoners would react turned out to be wrong.

The panic never came. The psychiatric hospitals built on the outskirts of London were switched over to military use because nobody showed up. Many women and children were evacuated to the countryside as the bombing started. But the people who needed to stay in the city, by and large, stayed.

As the blitz continued, as the German assaults grew heavier and heavier, the British authorities began to observe, to their astonishment, not just courage in the face of the bombing, but something closer to indifference. In October 1940, I had occasion to drive through Southeast London just after a series of attacks on that district. One English psychiatrist wrote just after the war ended, "Every 100 yards or so, it seemed there was a bomb crater or wreckage or what had once been a house or shop.

The siren blew its warning and I looked to see what would happen. A nun seized the hand of a child she was escorting and hurried on. She and I seemed to be the only ones who had heard the warning.

Small boys continued to play all over the pavements. Shoppers went on haggling. A policeman directed traffic in majestic boredom. And the bicyclists defied death and the traffic laws. No one, so far as I could see, even looked into the sky.

I think you'll agree this is hard to believe. The blitz was war. The exploding bombs sent deadly shrapnel flying in every direction. The incendiaries left a different neighborhood in flames every night. More than a million people lost their homes. Thousands crammed into makeshift shelters and subway stations every night. And outside, between the thunder of planes overhead, the thought of explosions, the rattle of anti-aircraft guns, and the endless wails of ambulances, fire engines, and warning sirens, the noise was unrelenting.

In one survey of Londoners on the night of September 12th, 1940, a third of them said that they had gotten no sleep the night before. And another third said they had gotten fewer than four hours. This is Gladwell writing. Can you imagine how New Yorkers would have reacted if one of their office towers had been reduced to rubble not just once, but every night for two and a half months?

The typical explanation for the reaction of Londoners is the Brit's stiff upper lip, the stoicism said to be inherent in the English character. And not surprisingly, this is the explanation most favored by the British themselves. But one of the things that soon became clear was that it wasn't just the British who behaved this way.

Civilians from other countries also turned out to be unexpectedly resilient in the face of bombing.

Bombing, it became clear, didn't have the effect that everyone had thought it would have. It wasn't until the end of the war that the puzzle was solved by the Canadian psychiatrist J.T. McCurdy in a book called The Structure of Morale.

McCurdy argued that when a bomb falls, it divides the affected population into three groups. The first group is the people killed. They are the ones for whom the experience of the bombing is obviously the most devastating. But as McCurdy pointed out, maybe a bit callously, the morale of the community depends on the reaction of the survivors. So from that point of view, the killed do not matter.

Put this way, the fact is obvious. Corpses do not run about spreading panic. The next group he called the near misses. They feel the blast, they see the destruction, are horrified by the carnage, perhaps they're wounded. But they survive deeply impressed. Impression means here a powerful reinforcement of the fear reaction in associating with bombing.

It may result in shock, a loose term that covers anything from a dazed state or actual stupor to jumpiness and preoccupation with the horrors that have been witnessed. Third, he said, are the remote misses. These are the people who listen to the sirens, watch the enemy bombers overhead, hear the thunder of the exploding bombs. But the bomb hits down the street or the next block over. And for them, the consequences of a bombing attack are exactly the opposite of a near miss group. They survived.

And the second or third time that happens, the emotion associated with the attack, McCurdy wrote, is a feeling of excitement with a feeling of flavor of invulnerability.

A near miss leaves you traumatized. But a remote miss makes you think you're invincible. In diaries and recollections of Londoners who lived through the blitz, there are countless examples of this phenomenon. And here's one. When the siren, first siren sounded, I took my children to our dugout in the garden, and I was quite certain we were all going to be killed.

Then the all clear went without anything having happened. Ever since then, ever since we came out of the dugout, I have felt sure nothing would ever hurt us. Or consider this from the diary of a young woman whose house was shaken by a nearby explosion.

I lay there feeling indescribably happy and triumphant. I've been bombed, I kept saying to myself over and over again, trying the phrase on like a new dress to see how it fitted. I've been bombed. I've been bombed, me.

It seems a terrible thing to say when many people were killed and injured last night, but never in my whole life have I ever experienced such pure and flawless happiness.

So why were Londoners so unfazed by the blitz? Because 40,000 deaths and 46,000 injuries spread across a metropolitan area of more than 8 million people means that there were many more remote misses who were emboldened by the experience of being bombed than there were near misses who were traumatized by it.

And this is vital for us to hear. We are all of us not merely liable to fear, McCurdy went on. We are also prone to be afraid of being afraid.

And the conquering of fear produces exhilaration. When we have been afraid that we may panic in an air raid and when it has happened and we have exhibited to others nothing but a calm exterior, and we are now safe, the contrast between the previous apprehension and the present relief and feeling of security promotes a self-confidence that is very the very father and mother of courage.

In the midst of the blitz, a middle-aged laborer in a button factory was asked if he wanted to be evacuated to the countryside. He had been bombed out of his house twice, but each time he and his wife had been fine.

He refused. What? And miss all this? He exclaimed. Not for all the gold in China. There has never been nothing like it. Never and never will be again.

You see, I'm convinced that our current generations aren't struggling with some of their decisions so much because they've had such difficult ones to make. I feel that perhaps we struggle a bit because we've had it so easy. And so one of the great values of difficulties is that as we come through them and we master them, our morale increases and we recognize if I can come through that, I can come through the next thing by God's help.

I think there's a reason why the Great War, and that's what World War I was called, but by the Great War and the Great Depression, and then another Great War, produced what is called the greatest generation. There were some terrible difficulties, but it forged within them courage.

Like we so often do not see today. Out of tremendous difficulty comes amazing treasure. I recognize COVID-19 is nothing like those difficulties, and I'm not wishing for increased difficulties. I would like more courage without the difficulties. But so often, that is how God works. To increase our morale, to overcome, to prepare us for something richer and fuller in the future.

And so I want to encourage you that if the difficulties increase, whatever they might be, and they probably will since we're living this life, as we walk with God, we can glean and gain treasure from those times. In closing, when it comes to struggles, difficulties, setbacks, there is tremendous treasure to be mined.

Treasures of maturity, memories, mercies, morale, and so many others. My question for you is, what treasures are you mining from this current crisis?