I have been given the honor of preparing the Professional Reading Program for Chaplains for the US Army Reserves. This program is essentially a career-long study guide to the greatest books—I get to assemble—to help the Reserve Chaplain grow as an officer and as a physician of souls within this very unique setting called the United States Army Reserve. I hope to have my program and bibliography ready for initial review by the first of August. Yet I wanted to share a key verse that is a principle to me in this work: that our nation and the great men and women who have served it have been but clay pots in the Master Potter’s sovereign hand. For we read:
“For they got not the land in possession by their own sword, neither did their own arm save them: but thy right hand, and thine arm, and the light of thy countenance, because thou hadst a favour unto them” (Psalms 44:3 KJV).
The blessing of God has been secured by faithful people in prayer. We live today on the spiritual capital of generations of prayer warriors who have gone before.
Psalm 44:3 will be my guide as I begin this work. I dedicate this cause to Christ and ask that the end of this project, which will include pastoral theology, military, political and spiritual biographies, Chaplain studies, World Religions, Christianity and the World, strategic studies and military history, American history, British history, Cognitive/Learning studies, civility, religious liberty, a selection of the Greats, and Leadership studies, will be to honor God, strengthen our chaplains across their careers—especially Reserve Chaplains, who need a guide as they are often removed from professional development opportunities afforded the active duty chaplain, and to recall: America was blessed by God, preserved by God, and can only hope for future success in God.