Die at your post

The Army papers arrive on our doorstep on Wednesday mornings usually just in time for me to glance at them whilst eating my breakfast. This event can be marked with interested calm, a few hallelujahs at some good news or something someone has written that inspires. Sometimes, I admit, Alan has to come in and calm my outrage down, when the letters page in the Salvationist is particularly infuriating. This week, however I was moved and challenged by the interview with Edna Williams.

She says, "Late one night, in my house on the territorial headquarters compound, the watchman came round to put out all outside lights. He told me to be quiet as there were soldiers and tanks at the gate. I put on my uniform thinking: If I'm going to be shot I want them to know who they are shooting! I knew that as a soldier of God there was no need to hide away."

Her words reminded me of William Booth'message entitled Die at your post. Here is an extract:

"Men and women who will die at their post are the very sort in demand just now in the Salvation Army and elsewhere. They are what the world needs, what we are praying for and what God wants. We are constantly told that we make the service of God and the obtaining and retaining of his favour too important and serious a thing. That we demand too much when we say that there must be no compromise, no holdng anything back, no denying him in little matters.......

Come along! No more reckoning up of what an out and out life for Jehovah down here among men will cost. Here is the altar; put all on. All has not gone on yet and you know it. And here is the secret why both the early and the latter rain have been withheld. Now let go and look out for the deluge."