A Word about the No-Win Scenario

Today I want to share a word about the no-win scenario, as I comment on Psalm 71:1-6.

That passage reads: 

In you, O LORD, I take refuge; let me never be put to shame. In your righteousness deliver me and rescue me; incline your ear to me and save me. Be to me a rock of refuge, a strong fortress, to save me, for you are my rock and my fortress. Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked, from the grasp of the unjust and cruel. For you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O LORD, from my youth. Upon you I have leaned from my birth; it was you who took me from my mother's womb. My praise is continually of you.

When There Are No Good Options:

Have you ever considered what you will do when the day comes that there are no good options? When you face what Star Trek’s Captain Kirk called a “no-win scenario?”

In the modern world, we have come to expect there to always be a way out of a crisis situation. In times past, we relied on family and on our own skills to work our way out of a jam. In modern times we have often turned to our government, the most powerful and affluent in the world, to help us when things go bad. And, up to now, for most of us, these sources of help have come through. 

But, what if they can’t? Even if they wanted to, the day may come, sooner rather than later, when those earthly sources of help may not be enough. When that day comes, what will we do?

I don’t know, to be honest, but I do know what four U.S. Army chaplains did when they faced that day.

The Four Chaplains:

During the Second World War, the S.S. Dorchester was steaming in a convoy from Newfoundland to Greenland on the night of February 2 & 3, 1943. The former passenger liner had been commandeered for use as a troopship, and 902 souls were on board when the German submarine U-233 torpedoed her with less than 150 miles to go on her journey.

It was bedlam aboard the sinking ship. Many Soldiers were unable to find their life jackets, and others were forced to flee the rush of incoming water without coats or gloves on that freezing winter’s night. Some of the troops began to panic, but four U.S. Army chaplains, George Fox, Alexander Goode, John Washington, and Clark Poling offered them hope and encouragement.

The four chaplains gave away their life jackets and gloves. They sang hymns and said prayers. As the ship went down, they were seen with linked arms, praying as the water overtook them.

How could these men sacrifice so much and be so brave? They knew God and trusted Him above all.

Security is in Knowing God:

We may never have a “come to Jesus” moment like occurred on the S.S. Dorchester. 

We may never have to decide if our faith is strong enough to give away our life jacket. 

We may never go down with a ship as a martyr. 

We all, however, unless Jesus comes, will face the day that our own mortality will be realized. Even more frightening is the fact that such a day may come for a loved one, or some other calamity will beset one whom we love but whom we cannot help. What will we do then?

The thing we must do is to follow the model of the Psalmist did and say, with gratitude, “In you, O LORD, I take refuge.”

We should not live in dread, but we do need to be realistic. One day, like the pilots of a crashing plane we will “run out of speed, altitude, and ideas all at the same time." When we do, we will face the same decision as faced the Four Chaplains 79 years ago. The good thing for us is that in those intervening decades, their God, and ours’s,  has not changed.

A No-Win Scenario?

Star Trek’s Captain Kirk did not believe in the no-win scenario. The good news is that our God doesn’t either, and neither do we, as long as with the Psalmist we say, “In you, O LORD, I take refuge.”

When we face the day when we have no options, because God is our refuge, we, too, can sing hymns. Let me suggest the one that says,

“I know whom I have believed,

and I'm persuaded that He is able 

to keep that which I've committed 

unto Him against that day!”

Every blessing,

Dr. Otis Corbitt