Glorious Defeat Quotes

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.

Glorious victories make fine songs, Yarvi, but inglorious ones are no worse once the bards are done with them. Glorious defeats, meanwhile, are just defeats.

He, the Life of all, our Lord and Saviour, did not arrange the manner of his own death lest He should seem to be afraid of some other kind. No. He accepted and bore upon the cross a death inflicted by others, and those other His special enemies, a death which to them was supremely terrible and by no means to be faced; and He did this in order that, by destroying even this death, He might Himself be believed to be the Life, and the power of death be recognised as finally annulled. A marvellous and mighty paradox has thus occurred, for the death which they thought to inflict on Him as dishonour and disgrace has become the glorious monument to death's defeat.

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though chequered by failure, than to take rank with those poor souls who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.

Let the sun go down on you like King Harold at the battle of Hastings — fighting gloriously. Maybe a loser but what a loser! Greater in defeat than the conqueror. Certainly not a coward that rusted out lurking in his tent.

We are never defeated, not even when all the evidence appears to the contrary. If you are still breathing, there is always tomorrow, and it can always be new. You don't have to be who you were.

Maybe he hadn't thought the war through. It had seemed like simple fun when he had first pictured it, with a glorious beginning, a difficult but valor-filled middle, and a victorious end. He hadn't accounted for the fact that there might not be much of a resolution to the battle, and he hadn't imagined what it would feel like when the war just sort of ended, without anyone admitting defeat and congratulating him for his bravery.

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory or defeat.

One more comment from the heart: I’m old fashioned and think that reading books is the most glorious pastime that humankind has yet devised. Homo Ludens dances, sings, produces meaningful gestures, strikes poses, dresses up, revels and performs elaborate rituals. I don’t wish to diminish the significance of these distractions-without them human life would pass in unimaginable monotony and possibly dispersion and defeat. But these are group activities above which drifts a more or less perceptible whiff of collective gymnastics. Homo Ludens with a book is free. At least as free as he’s capable of being. He himself makes up the rules of the game, which are subject only to his own curiosity. He’s permitted to read intelligent books, from which he will benefit, as well as stupid ones, from which he may also learn something. He can stop before finishing one book, if he wishes, while starting another at the end and working his way back to the beginning. He may laugh in the wrong places or stop short at words he’ll keep for a life time. And finally, he’s free-and no other hobby can promise this-to eavesdrop on Montaigne’s arguments or take a quick dip in the Mesozoic.

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumps, even though checkered by failure, then to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the grey twilight that knows not victory nor defeat. Theodore Roosevelt

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory or defeat. —THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Far better is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.

In the face of an obstacle which it is impossible to overcome, stubbornness is stupid. If I persist in beating my fist against a stone wall, my freedom exhausts itself in this useless gesture without succeeding in giving itself a content. It debases itself in a vain contingency. Yet, there is hardly a sadder virtue than resignation. It transforms into phantoms and contingent reveries projects which had at the beginning been set up as will and freedom. A young man has hoped for a happy or useful or glorious life. If the man he has become looks upon these miscarried attempts of his adolescence with disillusioned indifference, there they are, forever frozen in the dead past. When an effort fails, one declares bitterly that he has lost time and wasted his powers. The failure condemns that whole part of ourselves which we had engaged in the effort. It was to escape this dilemma that the Stoics preached indifference. We could indeed assert our freedom against all constraint if we agreed to renounce the particularity of our projects. If a door refuses to open, let us accept not opening it and there we are free. But by doing that, one manages only to save an abstract notion of freedom. It is emptied of all content and all truth. The power of man ceases to be limited because it is annulled. It is the particularity of the project which determines the limitation of the power, but it is also what gives the project its content and permits it to be set up. There are people who are filled with such horror at the idea of a defeat that they keep themselves from ever doing anything. But no one would dream of considering this gloomy passivity as the triumph of freedom

All of history’s great leaders had moments of glorious success and moments of devastating defeat. Great leaders focus on the things they can change and influence, and the past is not one of those things. If you fail, learn from it but cease to dwell on it. When you succeed, celebrate with your followers and move on.

It is not the dead rather the ones who lives through war have seen the dreadful end of the war, you might have been victorious, unwounded but deep within you, you carry the mark of the war, you carry the memories of war, the time you have spend with your comrades, the times when you had to dug in to foxholes to avoid shelling, the times when you hate to see your comrade down on the ground, feeling of despair, atrocities of the war, missing families, home. They live through hell and often the most wounded, they live with the guilt, despair, of being in the war, they may be happy but deep down they are a different person. Not everyone is a hero. You live with the moments, time when you were unsuccessful, when your actions would have helped your comrades, when your actions get your comrades killed, you live with regret, joyous in the victory can never help you forget the time you have spent. You are victorious for the people you have lost, the decisions you have made, the courage you have shown but being victorious in the war has a price to pay, irrevocable. You can't take a memory back from a person, even if you lose your memory your imagination haunts you as deep down your sub conscious mind you know who you are, who you were. Close you eyes and you can very well see your past, you cant change your past, time you have spent, you live through all and hence you are a hero not for the glorious war for the times you have faced. Decoration with medals is not going to give your life back. the more you know, more experiences doesn't make it easy rather make its worse. Arms and ammunition kills you once and free you from the misery but the experiences of war kills you everyday, makes you cherish the times everyday through the life. You may forgot that you cant walk anymore, you may forget you cant use your right hand, you may forgot the scars on your face but you can never forgot war. Life without war is never easy and only the ones how survived through it can understand. Soldiers are taught to fight but the actual combat starts after war which you are not even trained for. You rely on your weapon, leaders, comrades, god, luck in the war but here you rely on your self to beat the horrors,they have seen hell, heaven, they have felt the mixed emotions of hope, despair, courage, victory, defeat, scared.

No cause that was ever worthy was without its turmoil, its trials, its hopelessness. We are not defeated yet.

Sophia is an artist, making this visible underworld an image of the glorious Archetype.

What do you mean? What do you demand of your captain? Are you then so easily turned from your design? Did you not call this a glorious expedition? And wherefore was it glorious? Not because the way was smooth and placid as a southern sea, but because it was full of dangers and terror; because at every new incident your fortitude was to be called forth and your courage exhibited; because danger and death surrounded it, and these you were to brave and overcome. For this was it a glorious, for this was it an honourable undertaking. You were hereafter to be hailed as the benefactors of your species; your names adored as belonging to brave men who encountered death for honour and the benefit of mankind. And now, behold, with the first imagination of danger, or, if you will, the first mighty and terrific trial of your courage, you shrink away, and are content to be handed down as men who had not strength enough to endure cold and peril; and so, poor souls, they were chilly and returned to their warm firesides. Why that requires not this preparation; ye need not have come thus far, and dragged your captain to the shame of a defeat, merely to prove yourselves cowards. Oh! be men, or be more than men. Be steady to your purposes and firm as a rock. This ice is not made of such stuff as your hearts may be; it is mutable and cannot withstand you if you say that it shall not. Do not return to your families with the stigma of disgrace marked on your brows. Return as heroes who have fought and conquered, and who know not what it is to turn their backs on the foe.

Those soldiers belonging to the victorious side whose blood has oozed into the ground and whose hearts have ceased beating, have they partaken in the triumph as well as those who are unscarred and busy draining cups of sake to each other's glorious deeds? I rather think they belong instead to the defeated." ... "You mean that those who are killed all belong to the defeated, regardless of which side they were on?

While marriage is many things, it is anything but sentimental. Marriage is glorious but hard. It’s a burning joy and strength, and yet it is also blood, sweat, and tears, humbling defeats and exhausting victories.

Don't be obsessed with yet another revolution to overthrow the opposition, if you think that a violently excruciating revolution will make everything right. Let me ask a question about this brave new revolution of yours, when you have finally defeated all the bad guys and it's all perfect and just and fair - when you've finally got it exactly the way you want it, what are you going to do with the people like you - the trouble-makers? How are you going to protect your glorious revolution from the next one? You may most blindly and boastfully proclaim that you will win. But remember, no one wins for long. The wheel just keeps turning.

Colonel Crawley’s defective capital. I wonder how many families are driven to roguery and to ruin by great practitioners in Crawlers way?— how many great noblemen rob their petty tradesmen, condescend to swindle their poor retainers out of wretched little sums and cheat for a few shillings? When we read that a noble nobleman has left for the Continent, or that another noble nobleman has an execution in his house — and that one or other owes six or seven millions, the defeat seems glorious even, and we respect the victim in the vastness of his ruin. But who pities a poor barber who can’t get his money for powdering the footmen’s heads; or a poor carpenter who has ruined himself by fixing up ornaments and pavilions for my lady’s dejeuner; or the poor devil of a tailor whom the steward patronizes, and who has pledged all he is worth, and more, to get the liveries ready, which my lord has done him the honour to bespeak? When the great house tumbles down, these miserable wretches fall under it unnoticed: as they say in the old legends, before a man goes to the devil himself, he sends plenty of other souls thither.

Far better to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.

. Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory or defeat.” It

The history books ever and always celebrate the daring battles, but the wars are won before and after the battles, not during. Battles lead to defeat, not victory. Hidetada, you must learn this. Fighting desperately is not glorious; it means you have already made a mistake and taken an unnecessary gamble.

(H)ow many great noblemen rob their petty tradesmen, condescend to swindle their poor retainers out of wretched little sums, and cheat for a few shillings? When we read that a nobleman has left for the Continent, or that another noble nobleman has an execution in his house - that one or other owe six or seven millions, the defeat seems glorious even, and we respect the victim of the vastness of his ruin. But who pities a poor barber who can't get his money for powdering the footman's heads; or a poor carpenter who has ruined himself by fixing up ornaments and pavilions for my lady's déjeuner; or the poor devil of a tailor whom the steward patronizes, and who has pledged all he is worth, and more, to get the liveries ready, which my lord has done him the honor to bespeak? - When the great house tumbles down, these miserable wretches fall under it unnoticed: as they say in old legends, before a man goes to the devil himself, he sends plenty of other souls thither.

In the Galactic Nucleus, in the place known as the Pleroma are located a group of glorious beings named the Aeons. They are emanations of the Absolute Reality. They may also be considered divisions within the Godhead, as well as the various aspects of dimensions of the Infinitely Pre-Existent and in some spiritual traditions, the Names of God.

What a glorious Savior he is! Once again consider Christ in his entire identity, life, and work. In his birth, he is the divine Son and Lord who chooses to become our Mediator in obedience to his Father’s will. In his life, as the incarnate Son, he is still the sovereign King who willingly and gladly chooses to die for us. In his death, he does not die as a victim or martyr but as one who is fully in control, choosing to die for us. By his death, he pays for our sin, destroys death, and defeats Satan by putting him under his feet in triumph. In his resurrection, which is inseparable from his life and death, the Father by the Spirit exalts the Son and inaugurates the glorious new covenant age of the new creation. From that posture of authority, the glorified and exalted Son pours out the Spirit, once again proof that he is Lord and Messiah/King. From that same posture of authority, the exalted and ascended Lord rules over his people, governs history, and will return in power to consummate all that he has begun in his first coming.

Johnny Flora Author of "The Spell of Zalanon and Wake Co." Quote Du Jour; Fare better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much because they live in the grey twilight that neither knows victory or defeat...Theodore Roosevelt

Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat. Theodore Roosevelt I care not what others think of what I do, but I care very much about what I think of what I do! That is character! Theodore Roosevelt

The First Reich had been the medieval Holy Roman Empire; the Second Reich had been that which was formed by Bismarck in 1871 after Prussia’s defeat of France. Both had added glory to the German name. The Weimar Republic, as Nazi propaganda had it, had dragged that fair name in the mud. The Third Reich restored it, just as Hitler had promised. Hitler’s Germany, then, was depicted as a logical development from all that had gone before—or at least of all that had been glorious.

All of history’s great leaders had moments of glorious success and moments of devastating defeat. Great leaders focus on the things they can change and influence, and the past is not one of those things. If you fail, learn from it but cease to dwell on it. When you succeed, celebrate with your followers and move on. A leader who continually dwells on past success shows that he has not set his eye on greater things. Additionally, as we learn from the Greeks, a leader’s hubris can quickly become their downfall. Always stay humble and hungry.

I’d previously thought I’d get better. I’d always thought it true that hope and depression were bitter rivals until one inevitably defeated the other, and I’d always thought that hope would win out in the end. But for the first time in my life, I was void of hope. I honestly believed that being depressed was just the way I was, and that being depressed was just the way I’d be, for the rest of my life. And because I was so convinced that I’d never get better, there seemed no point in fighting my illness. Instead of willing myself to “hang in there” because I believed that my suffering was temporary and that everything would be better one day, I comforted myself with the knowledge that human beings are not immortal. That I would die, one day. One special, glorious day. Then I could spend the rest of eternity mouldering in a grave, free from pain. You might be wondering why I didn’t just kill myself if I wholeheartedly believed that my future consisted of nothing more than excruciating misery. Well, first of all, I still was not a quitter. But more importantly, I didn’t want to hurt the people that loved me.

Whatever rejection has stolen from you, I declare that the deepest desperation you’ve experienced will lead to God’s greatest revelation in your life. I declare that the Lord will give you relief from your unbelief. He will restore you, redeem you, and write His story—His glorious story onto the pages of your life. It will happen. Doubt and defeat have no place in the sacred sanctuary of your heart. Bitterness, resentment, and anger have no place in a life as beautiful as yours. From now on when misguided voices or the enemy himself tries to put you down with lies or pull you away from the truth or push you into anything that could derail your destiny, I pray that you will sense the mighty hands and heart of God … Lift you up with truth. Draw you close with His loving tenderness. And shame Satan back to hell with His resurrecting power. Rejection—It may be a delay. It may be a distraction. It may even be a devastation for a season but it is not your final destination. You are destined for a love that can never be diminished, tarnished, shaken, or taken. You have a story. May it be His Word that becomes the word of this story you absolutely must tell to the glory of God.

Mr. Churchill had struggled to diminish totalitarian rule in Europe, which, however, increased. He fought to save the empire, which dissolved. He fought socialism, which prevailed. He struggled to defeat Hitler—and he won. It is not, I think, the significance of that victory, mighty and glorious though it was, that causes the name of Churchill to make the blood run a little faster. He later spoke diffidently about his role in the war, saying that the lion was the people of England, that he had served merely to provide the roar. But it is the roar that we hear, when we pronounce his name. WFB

Sure, I ached for the backroads of my hometown in Missouri, but leaving behind a scholarship would’ve been a defeat for my folks, who had no idea what it was like for me—they who thought their little girl was up north learning the truth of America in the sort of place where a young woman could cross the thresholds of the rich. They told me that my southern charm would get me by. My father wrote letters that began: My Little Glorious. I wrote back on airmail paper. I told them how much I loved my history classes, which was true. I told them I loved walking the woods, true too. I told them that I always had clean linen in my dorm room, true as well.

For, if ever the cosmic ideal should be realized, even though for a moment only, then in that time the awakened Soul of All will embrace within itself all spirits whatever throughout the whole of time's wide circuit. And so to each one of them, even to the least, it will seem that he has awakened and discovered himself to be the Soul of All, knowing all things and rejoicing in all things. And though afterwards, through the inevitable decay of the stars, this most glorious vision must be lost, suddenly or in the long-drawn-out defeat of life, yet would the awakened Soul of All have eternal being, and in it each martyred spirit would have beatitude eternally, though unknown to itself in its own temporal mode.

That a president is inevitably put forward and elected by the forces of established wealth and power means usually that he will be indentured by the time he reaches office. But in fact he is the freest of men if he will have the courage to think so and, at least theoretically, could be so transported by the millions of people who have endorsed his candidacy as to want to do the best for them. He might come to solemn appreciation of the vote we cast, in all our multicolored and multigendered millions, as an act of trust, fingers crossed, a kind of prayer. Not that it’s worked out that way. In 1968 Richard Nixon rebounded from his defeat at the hands of Jack Kennedy, and there he was again, his head sunk between the hunched shoulders of his three-button suit and his arms raised in victory, the exacted revenge of the pod people. That someone so rigid and lacking in honor or moral distinction of any kind, someone so stiff with crippling hatreds, so spiritually dysfunctional, out of touch with everything in life that is joyful and fervently beautiful and blessed, with no discernible reverence in him for human life, and certainly with never a hope of wisdom, but living only by pure politics, as if it were some colorless blood substitute in his veins—that this being could lurchingly stumble up from his own wretched career and use history and the two-party system to elect himself president is, I suppose, a gloriously perverse justification of our democratic form of government.

He had panicked. Tessier cursed his own stupidity. He should have remained in the column where he would have been protected. Instead, he saw an enemy coming for him like a revenant rising from a dark tomb, and had run first instead of thinking. Except this was no longer a French stronghold. The forts had all been captured and surrendered and the glorious revolutionary soldiers had been defeated. If the supply ships had made it through the blockade, Vaubois might still have been able to defend the city, but with no food, limited ammunition and disease rampant, defeat was inevitable. Tessier remembered the gut-wrenching escape from Fort Dominance where villagers spat at him and threw rocks. One man had brought out a pistol and the ball had slapped the air as it passed his face. Another man had chased him with an ancient boar spear and Tessier, exhausted from the fight, had jumped into the water. He had nearly drowned in that cold grey sea, only just managing to cling to a rock whilst the enemy searched the shoreline. The British warship was anchored outside the village, and although Tessier could see men on-board, no one had spotted him. Hours passed by. Then, when he considered it was clear, he swam ashore to hide in the malodorous marshland outside Mġarr. His body shivered violently and his skin was blue and wrinkled like withered fruit, but in the night-dark light he lived. He had crept to a fishing boat, donned a salt-stained boat cloak and rowed out to Malta's monochrome coastline. He had somehow managed to escape capture by abandoning the boat to swim into the harbour. From there it had been easy to climb the city walls and to safety. He had written his account of the marines ambush, the fort’s surrender and his opinion of Chasse, to Vaubois. Tessier wanted Gamble cashiered and Vaubois promised to take his complaint to the senior British officer when he was in a position to. Weeks went past. Months. A burning hunger for revenge changed to a desire for provisions. And until today, Tessier reflected that he would never see Gamble again. Sunlight twinkled on the water, dazzling like a million diamonds scattered across its surface. Tessier loaded his pistol in the shadows where the air was still and cool. He had two of them, a knife and a sword, and, although starving and crippled with stomach cramps, he would fight as he had always done so: with everything he had.

Lilian was very soon well on her way into the mysterious retreat. The lure of the waters, the thought of the remote, unknown head of the valley, carried her forward. She was alone, excited, even happy in this craggy, tangled, gradually darkening, thoroughly wonderful, increasingly fascinating wild retreat. Here was her dear childhood again. Here was the original wholeness she had lost: fresh life, young knowledge of abundance, no inkling of loss or defeat. And here, at last (not in the lewd streets of the cities), her glorious beauty was clean, her life was clean, her sex. Like a growing, lovely flower, a supple shoot, a burgeoning tree, Lilian knew that this, this lovely mountain-womb, was her home; the world to which her radiant body belonged was this living world of the bursting flowers and the trees.

I am just coming from my visit to Japan, where I exhorted this young nation to take its stand upon the higher ideals of humanity and never to follow the West in its acceptance of the organized selfishness of Nationalism as its religion, never to gloat upon the feebleness of its neighbours, never to be unscrupulous in its behaviour to the weak, where it can be gloriously mean with impunity, while turning its right cheek of brighter humanity for the kiss of admiration to those who have the power to deal it a blow. Some of the newspapers praised my utterances for their poetical qualities, while adding with a leer that it was the poetry of a defeated people. I felt they were right. Japan had been taught in a modern school the lesson how to become powerful. The schooling is done and she must enjoy the fruits of her lessons.

Step by step, Madeleine rose in distinction, in brilliance, in insight. Her color grew very rich, and her brows, and that Byzantine nose of hers, rose, moved; her blue eyes gained by the flush that kept deepening, rising from her chest and her throat. She was in an ecstasy of consciousness. It occurred to Herzog that she had beaten him so badly, her pride was so fully satisfied, that there was an overflow of strength into her intelligence. He realized that he was witnessing one of the very greatest moments of her life. “You should hold on to that feeling,” she said. “I believe it’s true. You do love me. But I think you also understand what a humiliation it is to me to admit defeat in this marriage. I’ve put all I had into it. I’m crushed by this.” Crushed? She had never looked more glorious. There was an element of theater in those looks, but much more of passion.

Why did this unique process start in England and why in the seventeenth century? Why did England develop pluralistic political institutions and break away from extractive institutions? As we have seen, the political developments leading up to the Glorious Revolution were shaped by several interlinked processes. Central was the political conflict between absolutism and its opponents. The outcome of this conflict not only put a stop to the attempts to create a renewed and stronger absolutism in England, but also empowered those wishing to fundamentally change the institutions of society. The opponents of absolutism did not simply attempt to build a different type of absolutism. This was not simply the House of Lancaster defeating the House of York in the War of the Roses. Instead, the Glorious Revolution involved the emergence of a new regime based on constitutional rule and pluralism. This

JANUARY 28 MY KINGDOM WILL BE ESTABLISHED IN YOUR LIFE MY KINGDOM COME, My will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. My kingdom will advance and be established through the preaching and teaching of My Word, and through My miracles of healing. Let the gates of your life and city be opened for the King of glory to come in. I am robed in majesty and armed with strength; indeed, the whole world is established, firm, and secure because My throne was established long ago—from all eternity. Do not be afraid, little one, for it has pleased Me to give you the kingdom. Let men know of My mighty acts and the glorious majesty of My kingdom. Let the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of My Son, Jesus Christ. MATTHEW 4:23; PSALMS 24:7; 103:19–22; 145:12 Prayer Declaration Your kingdom come, Lord, Your will be done. Lord, You reign. You are clothed with majesty and strength. Your throne is established of old. You are from everlasting. I receive the kingdom because it is Your good pleasure to give it to me. Let me speak of the glory of Your kingdom and talk of Your power.

What do you mean? What do you demand of your captain? Are you, then, so easily turned from your design? Did you not call this a glorious expedition? “And wherefore was it glorious? Not because the way was smooth and placid as a southern sea, but because it was full of dangers and terror, because at every new incident your fortitude was to be called forth and your courage exhibited, because danger and death surrounded it, and these you were to brave and overcome. For this was it a glorious, for this was it an honourable undertaking. You were hereafter to be hailed as the benefactors of your species, your names adored as belonging to brave men who encountered death for honour and the benefit of mankind. And now, behold, with the first imagination of danger, or, if you will, the first mighty and terrific trial of your courage, you shrink away and are content to be handed down as men who had not strength enough to endure cold and peril; and so, poor souls, they were chilly and returned to their warm firesides. Why, that requires not this preparation; ye need not have come thus far and dragged your captain to the shame of a defeat merely to prove yourselves cowards. Oh! Be men, or be more than men. Be steady to your purposes and firm as a rock. This ice is not made of such stuff as your hearts may be; it is mutable and cannot withstand you if you say that it shall not. Do not return to your families with the stigma of disgrace marked on your brows. Return as heroes who have fought and conquered and who know not what it is to turn their backs on the foe.

What do you mean? What do you demand of your captain? Are you, then, so easily turned from your design? Did you not call this a glorious expedition? And wherefore was it glorious? Not because the way was smooth and placid as a southern sea, but because it was 266 Frankenstein full of dangers and terror, because at every new incident your fortitude was to be called forth and your courage exhibited, because danger and death surrounded it, and these you were to brave and overcome. For this was it a glorious, for this was it an honourable undertaking. You were hereafter to be hailed as the benefactors of your species, your names adored as belonging to brave men who encountered death for honour and the benefit of mankind. And now, behold, with the first imagination of danger, or, if you will, the first mighty and terrific trial of your courage, you shrink away and are content to be handed down as men who had not strength enough to endure cold and peril; and so, poor souls, they were chilly and returned to their warm firesides. Why, that requires not this preparation; ye need not have come thus far and dragged your captain to the shame of a defeat merely to prove yourselves cowards. Oh! Be men, or be more than men. Be steady to your purposes and firm as a rock. This ice is not made of such stuff as your hearts may be; it is mutable and cannot withstand you if you say that it shall not. Do not return to your families with the stigma of disgrace marked on your brows. Return as heroes who have fought and conquered and who know not what it is to turn their backs on the foe.

Our contributions had made, when it came to it, not the slightest bit of difference. I had been utterly defeated on every front; I should, at that moment of all moments, have been steeped in despair. And yet, as I sat at the window, I did not find myself despairing. For out of the gloom, the hopelessness, the humiliation of the day, certain images kept defiantly floating up: Frank with Droyd in his arms, lurching out of the stinking basement; Frank thumping the Plexiglas, cheering on the dogs; the glorious moment of Frank, tongue tucked between his teeth, crisply punching Harry on the nose. I didn’t ask for them; they didn’t appear to change anything; yet there they were, floating up out of the darkness before my eyes, over and over again, and with them now something Yeats had said once: “Friendship is all the house I have.” I frowned out through my ghostly reflection at the swaying trees, the rain. Friendship is all the house I have. It wasn’t a line I’d given much thought to before. Still, you could see what he meant, given all the problems one encountered with actual houses—heating bills and mortgages and wayward domestics, rack-renting landlords, actors moving in, all that. What kind of house would my friendship make? The day’s events paraded palely by again, like the tapestry of a long-ago battle. On the evidence it seemed that, for all my aspirations to the courtly life, I hadn’t provided much protection from the elements.

The Doomsday Clock agrees with true Bible prophecy watchers: Mideast midnight is approaching. But this fact shouldn’t worry the Christian who truly seeks to understand God’s truth that includes the whole Word, not just parts of the Bible. Fully 28 percent of the Bible contains prophecy. About half of that prophetic Word has already come to pass and the other half remains to be fulfilled. In other words, 14 percent of prophecy in the Bible will yet come to pass. Earthly war will soon fade into history. Peace will fill the whole world. Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, will break through the blackness of the Mideast midnight hour. He will speak, and the raging godless human forces will instantly be defeated. A new era will begin. The time of fallen human history will be vanquished, and King Jesus’ millennial reign will begin. So, Bible prophecy ultimately presents a picture, not of gloom and doom, but of glorious, joyous peace!

Far better to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory, nor defeat.

There are always new sins for the Christian to address and new enemies to defeat. The Christian life makes God’s work of change our paradigm for living, while we celebrate the grace that makes it possible. “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:11–13). Timothy S. Lane and Paul David Tripp

Teddy Roosevelt, another letter read, “Far better to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.

FEBRUARY 24 MY POWER AND MIGHT WILL SCATTER THE ENEMY MY POWER AND might will deliver you from your enemies. I will be a fortress for you against brutal people who attack you and want to kill you. Do not fear when they are ready to attack. I am the Lord God All-Powerful, and I will be your protection. Why are you so frightened when they plan their nighttime attacks with curses and confidence that no one can hear them? Have I not told you that My mighty power will make them tremble and fall? Don’t you know? Haven’t you heard? I am your eternal God, Creator of the earth, and I never get weary or tired. I give strength to those who are weary, so that you will be strong like an eagle soaring upward on wings. PSALM 59:1–12; ISAIAH 40:10–11, 28–31 Prayer Declaration Father, You have given to me the same great and mighty power that You used to defeat my enemies. Your power raised up Your Son from the dead, and I have access to that power to overcome all my enemies and live victoriously through You. Your glorious power will give me patience and strength to be victorious over Satan’s evil intentions.

There are always new sins for the Christian to address and new enemies to defeat. The Christian life makes God’s work of change our paradigm for living, while we celebrate the grace that makes it possible. “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:11–13).

APRIL 1 Worshiping with other believers helps you view all of life from the vantage point of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s not just the most important miracle ever. It’s not just the most astounding event in the life of the Messiah. It’s not just an essential item in your theological outline. It’s not just the reason for the most important celebratory season of the church. It’s not just your hope for the future. No, the resurrection is all that and more. It is also meant to be the window through which you view all of life. Second Corinthians 4:13–15 captures this truth very well: “[We know] that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.” But what does it look like to look at life through the window of the resurrection? As I assess my life right here, right now, what about the resurrection must I remember? Let me suggest five things. The resurrection of Jesus guarantees your resurrection too. Life is not a constantly repeating cycle of the same old same old. No, under God’s rule this world is marching toward a conclusion. Your life is being carried to a glorious end. There will be a moment when God will raise you out of this broken world, and sin and suffering will be no more. The resurrection tells you what Jesus is now doing. Jesus now reigns. First Corinthians 15 says that he will continue to reign until the final enemy is under his feet. You see, your world is not out of control, but under the careful control of One who is still doing his sin-defeating work. The resurrection promises you all the grace you need between Jesus’s resurrection and yours. If your end has already been guaranteed, then all the grace you need along the way has been guaranteed as well, or you would never make it to your appointed end. Future grace always carries with it the promise of present grace. The resurrection of Jesus motivates you to do what is right, no matter what you are facing. The resurrection tells you that God will win. His truth will reign. His plan will be accomplished. Sin will be defeated. Righteousness will overcome evil. This means that everything you do in God’s name is worth it, no matter what the cost. The resurrection tells you that you always have reason for thanks. Quite apart from anything you have earned, you have been welcomed into the most exciting story ever and have been granted a future of joy and peace forever. No matter what happens today, look at life through this window.

Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.5

For Paul this was of course the ultimately shocking and ultimately glorious thing: that in becoming human to fulfil his own promises, Israel’s God, the creator, had chosen to die on a cross. The cross became, for Paul, the fullest possible revelation of both the love and the justice of God, and then, in its outworking, the extraordinary saving power of God, defeating the powers that held people captive in pagan darkness and breaking the long entail of human sin.

Besides, he overcame the world when no one else had overcome it. It was as it were a young lion which had never been defeated in a fight: it roared upon him out of the thicket and leaped upon him in the fulness of its strength. Now if our greater Samson tore this young lion as though it were a kid and flung it down as a vanquished thing, you may depend upon it that now it is an old lion, and grey and covered with the wounds which he gave it of old, we, having the Lord’s life and power in us, will overcome it too. Blessed be his name! What good cheer there is in his victory. He as good as says to us, “I have overcome the world, and you in whom I dwell, who are clothed with my Spirit, must overcome it too.

FAR BETTER IT IS TO DARE MIGHTY THINGS, TO WIN GLORIOUS TRIUMPHS, EVEN THOUGH CHECKERED BY FAILURE, THAN TO TAKE RANK WITH THOSE POOR SPIRITS WHO NEITHER ENJOY NOR SUFFER TOO MUCH, BECAUSE THEY LIVE IN THE GRAY TWILIGHT THAT KNOWS NOT VICTORY NOR DEFEAT.” —Theodore Roosevelt, in his speech “The Strenuous Life, A Speech before the Hamilton Club,” Chicago, April 10, 1899

JANUARY 1 MY WORD AND MY POWER ARE ALL YOU NEED IN MY WORD you will discover the thoughts that I think about you. I have desired that your life be filled with My great peace, not with the evil and turmoil that you will find in the world, which the enemy will try to thrust upon you. My Word will help you to see the glorious future I have planned for you and will surround your life with the hope of overcoming the evil in this world through My strength and power. Allow My Holy Spirit to fill you up with My supernatural power. With My power there is nothing the enemy can do to hurt you. My Word and My power will help you to fill the whole earth with My glory. JEREMIAH 29:11; MATTHEW 10:1; PSALM 72:19

Teddy Roosevelt said that “far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat

Believers will also worship the Lord Jesus for His conquests in them, since the arrows of their natural hatred are snapped, and the weapons of their rebellion are broken. What victories grace has won in our evil hearts! How glorious is Jesus when the will is subdued and sin dethroned! As for our remaining corruptions, they will sustain an equally sure defeat, and every temptation and doubt and fear will be completely destroyed.

Misery me! I have heard songs of many battles, and I have always understood that defeat may be glorious. It seems very uncomfortable, not to say distressing. I wish I was well out of it.

The experiences of men who walked with God in olden times agree to teach that the Lord cannot fully bless a man until He has first conquered him. The degree of blessing enjoyed by any man will correspond exactly with the completeness of God’s victory over him. This is a badly neglected tenet of the Christian’s creed, not understood by many in this self-assured age, but it is nevertheless of living importance to us all. This spiritual principle is well illustrated in the book of Genesis. Jacob was the wily old heel-catcher whose very strength was to him a near-fatal weakness. For two-thirds of his total life he had carried in his nature something hard and unconquered. Not his glorious vision in the wilderness nor his long bitter discipline in Haran had broken his harmful strength. He stood at the ford of Jabbok at the time of the going down of the sun, a shrewd, intelligent old master of applied psychology learned the hard way. The picture he presented was not a pretty one. He was a vessel marred in the making. His hope lay in his own defeat. This he did not know at the setting of the day, but had learned before the rising of the sun. All night he resisted God until in kindness God touched the hollow of his thigh and won the victory over him. It was only after he had gone down to humiliating defeat that he began to feel the joy of release from his own evil strength, the delight of God’s conquest over him. Then he cried aloud for the blessing and refused to let go till it came. It had been a long fight, but for God (and for reasons known only to Him) Jacob had been worth the effort. Now he became another man, the stubborn and self-willed rebel was turned into a meek and dignified friend of God. He had prevailed indeed, but through weakness, not through strength.

Yet this grand and glorious God, for the purpose of redemption, becomes a man. The untraversable line between Creator and creature is crossed. The Word becomes flesh. The feet of God touch earth! The voice of God is heard on earth! The Lord comes as the Second Adam, the Word of Life, the Final Priest, and the Sacrificial Lamb. He satisfies God’s requirements, he atones for God’s anger, and he defeats death.

defeat may be glorious.

April 4 Elisha prayed, “O Lord, open his eyes so he may see.” (2 Kings 6:17) This is the prayer we need to pray for ourselves and one another: “Lord, open our eyes so we may see.” We are surrounded, just as the prophet Elisha was, by God’s “horses and chariots of fire” (2 Kings 6:17), waiting to transport us to places of glorious victory. Once our eyes are opened by God, we will see all the events of our lives, whether great or small, joyful or sad, as a “chariot” for our souls. Everything that comes to us becomes a chariot the moment we treat it as such. On the other hand, even the smallest trial may become an object crushing everything in its path into misery and despair if we allow it. The difference then becomes a choice we make. It all depends not on the events themselves but on how we view them. If we simply lie down, allowing them to roll over and crush us, they become an uncontrollable car of destruction. Yet if we climb into them, as riding in a car of victory, they become the chariots of God to triumphantly take us onward and upward. Hannah Whitall Smith There is not much the Lord can do with a crushed soul. That is why the Adversary attempts to push God’s people toward despair and hopelessness over their condition or the condition of the church. It has often been said that a discouraged army enters a battle with the certainty of defeat. I recently heard a missionary say she had returned home sick and disheartened because her spirit had lost its courage, which led to the consequence of an unhealthy body. We need to better understand these attacks of the Enemy on our spirit and how to resist them. If he can dislodge us from our proper position, he then seeks to “wear out the saints of the most High” (Dan. 7:25 KJV) through a prolonged siege, until we finally, out of sheer weakness, surrender all hope of victory.

When love for the Lord grows cold, the church’s witness to the world lacks credibility and power. Nothing will more energize the church and give it a boldness in the face of rampant evil, than a renewed love for him who first loved us. And nothing will more stir love for Christ than the Spirit anointed preaching of the sinless incarnate life, glorious propitiatory atonement, and death defeating resurrection of the Saviour. If the church, the Bible-believing, Christ-honouring, gospel-obedient people of God, is to stand uncompromisingly against the tidal wave of wickedness that is sweeping the nations, it will need to ‘remember’ from the height it has fallen, ‘repent’, and do the works it did at the first, especially the work of love-fuelled obedience (see Rev. 2:5). Pure and Genuine Religion, Banner of Truth, 682, 3.

How I Am Able To Envy You How I am able to envy you—the people of the day. He talked among you He walked beside you What a great feeling it must have been To see His face To touch His robe To hear His voice On that long ago road. How I am able to envy you—the three wise men. Who traveled by night and slept by day You took your pace and haste your way When you heard a Savior is born on that day What a great joy it must have been To fell before your knees in the presence of a new born King To offered Him gifts and sang Him hymn Blessed are you because you came. How I am able to envy you—the couple that invited His company. In response to His mother’s intercession He turned your water into wine What a great glory it must have been His first miracle you have seen You have tasted the sacredness of marriage And the abundance it brings You have tasted the sweetness of love That surpasses everything By His divine presence and His mother’s arrangement Christian marriage was raised to the dignity of a Sacrament. How I am able to envy you—the ones He cured. You deliberately stood at a distance Called in a loud voice and took your chance How it must have felt The light returning to your eyes The sound returning to your ears The strength returning to your feet The cleanse you longed to feel With all who came with the desire to be healed What a great feeling it must have been He opened your eyes with faith He opened your ears with truth And He opened your hearts with love A love born from His mercy and forgiveness. How I am able to envy you—the ones He raised to life. Experienced of a soul passing out of death Into fullness of life and liberty How it must have felt Life returning to your eyes Blood rush to your veins Air thrust to your lungs Waking from your sleep What a great feeling it must have been Having tasted death and knowing its defeat To rise to the life of grace and leave behind the grave of sin. How I am able to envy you—the penitent thief next to Him. At the very hour of your death Life flashes before your eyes Condemned justly for the sentence you received Refuse to lose your faith You see a light coming from His eyes Redeemed justly from the mercy you plead What a great glory it must have been The first beneficiary of God’s mercy you have obtained The eternal salvation which you have attained The reward too great you never expected to gain Reunited with Him in the paradise with joy and no more pain. How I am able to envy you—the seventy-two He sent out. His divine commission upon your head The power He bestowed The fire in your blood Your loyalty in His name The kindness in your heart The unceasing hope to succeed You performed miracles in His name What a great honor it must have been To be His hands and feet To be His ears and mouth To be His usable instrument On that triumphant and glorious moment. How I am able to envy you—the twelve He called His own Dine with Him Taught by Him Traveled beside Him Being with Him for years on end How I long to learn those words The way that you learned them from Him What a great feeling it must have been To touch and hold Him closed—as a Son of Man, as I never can.

In the United States the continued influence of the old elite meant that southern politics fell under the domination of a Democratic Party that gloried the Confederacy, the Lost Cause, the Ku Klux Klan, and resistance to Reconstruction. White supremacy was made into the fundamental cause of the South, and racism became the tool to enforce white unity behind the Democratic Party whenever a political challenge arose. Another tactic used over and over again to maintain the Solid South was to warn against outside threats and outside agitators. The mentality of a defensive, isolated, but gallant South helped Democratic leaders to deflect attention from the problems of their society and the effects of their rule. These powerful social currents, aided by women’s groups such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy, shaped and inhibited the region’s culture. Conformity to white supremacy, segregation, and Democratic Party rule was a social imperative for generations of southerners who were indoctrinated in the belief that they had suffered grave injustice with the defeat of their glorious Lost Cause. Had the diverse political leaders of so-called Radical Reconstruction continued to exercise some power or influence, the South would have been a very different society [187].

What we fail to understand is that we don’t have a hope problem; we have a sight problem. Hope has come. “What?” you say. “Where?” Hope isn’t a thing. Hope isn’t a set of circumstances. Hope isn’t first a set of ideas. Hope is a person, and his name is Jesus. He came to earth to face what you face and to defeat what defeats you so that you would have hope. Your salvation means that you are now in a personal relationship with the One who is hope. You have hope because he exists and is your Savior. You don’t have a hope problem; you have been given hope that is both real and constant. The issue is whether you see it. Paul captures the problem this way in Ephesians 1:18–19: “. . . having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might.

death comes not as a defeat but as a triumph, the crowning and most glorious moment of life.

Moreover, liberals asserted, the church maintained unsanitary practices, such as interring the remains of pious elites in the walls and beneath the floors of cathedrals, and it was unalterably opposed to science, progress, and liberal political ideas, making free use of censorship and spiritual intimidation to uphold its dogmas

This death that I have just described is a process of daily scanning our lives to see where things still live in us that should not live, then praying for the strength to die once again. Like the death of Jesus, this death is not a defeat, but a huge and glorious victory. For everywhere you die, you will be resurrected to new life in that area. It is the continuing resurrection/transformation/liberation work of sanctifying grace. So this season, how about scanning your heart and life?

Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take up ranks with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, for they live in that grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.” —Theodore Roosevelt—

The heart of postmillennialism is the faith that Christ will through His people accomplish and put into force the glorious prophecies of Isaiah and all the Scriptures, that He shall overcome all His enemies through His covenant people, and that He shall exercise His power and Kingdom in all the world and over all men and nations, so that, whether in faith or in defeat, every knee shall bow to Him and every tongue shall confess to God (Rom. 14:11; Phil. 2:11).

Embracing the Christian doctrines of the incarnation and cross brings profound consolation in the face of suffering. The doctrine of the resurrection can instil us with a powerful hope. It promises that we will get the life we most longed for, but it will be an infinitely more glorious world than if there had never been the need for bravery, endurance, sacrifice or salvation.14 Dostoevsky put it perfectly when he wrote: I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man, that in the world’s finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood that they’ve shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened.15 More succinctly, C. S. Lewis wrote: They say of some temporal suffering, ‘No future bliss can make up for it,’ not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory.16 This is the ultimate defeat of evil and suffering. It will not only be ended but so radically vanquished that what has happened will only serve to make our future life and joy infinitely greater.

The King (A Sonnet) Today I salute you, For today you are king, Ruler of the entire earth, One without a living being. My congratulations, your majesty, On your glorious accomplishment! Fate worse than a defeated king is a king without subjects. I got buried in the wreck, So did my friends and family. But still I salute you my king, On your unparalleled victory. I salute you from my grave, For today you are king, Ruler of a million lands, Yet still, ruler of nothing!

He did not yet know all the glorious gifts her defeat would bestow upon him, nor of her survival. But in turns to come he would realize that he had placed the wound as he did intentionally. To ensure her survival. To invite fire to bring her to him again.

For someone who has prepared and practiced, death comes not as a defeat but as a triumph, the crowning and most glorious moment of life.

The heart of post-millennialism is the faith that Christ will through His people accomplish and put into force the glorious prophecies of Isaiah and all the Scriptures, that He shall overcome all His enemies through His covenant people, and that He shall exercise His power and Kingdom in all the world and over all men and nations, so that, whether in faith or in defeat, every knee shall bow to Him and every tongue shall confess God (Rom. 14:11; Phil. 2:11).

Ode to the Vile Vial:   Oh vile vial, noxious ampule. Once a month, over you I must duel. You may keep the fleas at bay and other pests in check, But expect you no fight to keep the goop from my neck? I run and I hide. Giving in would destroy my pride. But I can’t get away, The human says this is the day. Oh vile vial. Defeat has spoiled my glorious fur, though tis temporary. My vow is to win next time, so you had best be wary.

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory or defeat.” THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat. —Theodore Roosevelt

James and John have been asking for the places at Jesus’s right and left so as to accompany him as he completes the glorious work of bringing in God’s kingdom, defeating all the powers that have held the human race captive. But those places are reserved for the two who are crucified alongside him as he hangs there with “King of the Jews” above his head.

Rainer Maria Rilke said, ‘The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.’ I will witness many crimes and commit my share of sins. I shall nonetheless rally from heart rendering defeat and continue struggling to make my mind a cool reflection table that is capable of mirroring without distress all the conflict and greed that living entails. I will rebound from glorious defeat of cherished ideas by continuing to exhibit profound reverence for every facet of living in a world filled with both kind and beastly people. I can never cease learning and working to control my devious monkey mind. While I prefer that other people respect me, I will encounter many people whom dislike or ignore me. I cannot live an enlightened existence attempting to win other people’s affection. I desire success, but I must embrace failure and heartache as the preeminent means to encounter suffering that is essential to foster intellectual and spiritual growth. I aspire to make a mosaic of the mind out of personal failures and script a future byline that is admirable because it reflects living in a principled and disciplined manner.

Suffering the agony of defeat is bringing me into a glorious meet. Yes, into Your presence O, LORD, I find You are teaching me to persevere.

We can have the moral courage, this time, to remind ourselves that major international violence us, in terms of the values our civilisation, a from of bankruptcy for us all, even for those who are confident that they are right; that all of us, victors and vanquished alike, must emerge from it poorer than we began it and farther from the goals we had in mind, and that, since victory or defeat can signify only relative degrees of misfortune, even the most glorious military victory would give us no right to face the future in any spirit other than one of sorrow and humbleness for what has happened and of realisation that the road ahead, toward a better world, is long and hard, longer and harder, in fact, than it would have been had it been possible to avoid a military cataclysm altogether.

to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in that grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.

The defeat of Mexico at first seemed another step toward the glorious fulfillment of America’s manifest destiny, but it turned out to be one of those instances with which history is replete, in which military victory sets off a political crisis in the land of the victor. “The United States will conquer Mexico,” Emerson declared in 1846, “but it will be as the man who swallows the arsenic which brings him down in turn. Mexico will poison us.” Privately,

Human beings are the focus of God’s greater displays of glory—not animals, not angels. Thus, it follows that humans reside in a unique position by which to behold this greater glory. Their special relationship with the Creator means that they become recipients of his actions in unique ways that no other creature experiences. But the greatest glory of God is reserved for the work he does in those humans he chooses to redeem, as we will see. Even the angels long to fully grasp this glorious work of God reserved for the elect few (1 Peter 1:12).