Wartime lifestyle (Part 1)

It is hard to believe today is the 70th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. That surprise bombing by Japan of the American Pacific fleet in Hawaii took the lives of more than 2,400 people and brought this country into World War II. As one of those whose parents participated in or supported that battle against regimes bent on world conquest, it is difficult to think it has been seven decades since it began for the United States.

That conflict consumed the attention of all Americans. Everything was focused on the war. Men went to war. Many women worked at jobs normally filled by men to aid the Armed Forces. Some women, such as my mother, moved to Washington, D.C., for at least part of the war to support the military effort. Americans changed their priorities. They sacrificed, because they were at war.

In his book Don’t Waste Your Life, John Piper uses the example of World War II – and especially that of the Marines who fought at the Battle of Iwo Jima – to help demonstrate what he means when he uses the term “wartime lifestyle.” In part, he says:

[I]n wartime, sinners often rise to remarkable levels of sacrifice for causes that cannot compare with Christ. The greatest cause in the world is joyfully rescuing people from hell, meeting their earthly needs, making them glad in God, and doing it with a kind, serious pleasure that makes Christ look like the Treasure He is. No war on earth was ever fought for a greater cause or a greater king.