12-27-24

There’s been a lot of talk lately about the Panama Canal….Trump raised eyebrows

by announcing in a classic “mean tweet” the US should consider taking back the

Panama Canal……you might wonder what all the fuss is…..why do we

care?.....Why would Trump even say something like that about a mere

canal?.....well, if you’re asking that question then you don’t know your

history….and if you don’t know the history of the Panama Canal then you don’t

know how important it is to our daily lives…..AND that it took a strength of will

and came at great cost…..and that America changed the world when we dug that

canal……but let me back up a bit……

One of my favorite passages in the Bible is often referred to as “Jonathan and his

Armor Bearer”…..oh man, it’s a great story…… it’s a battlefield story, it’s a story of

heroism, it’s a story getting something big done against even bigger odds…..and

it’s a story that illustrates very clearly that sometimes the issue is less about the

end goal, and more about just starting…….just starting……

So here’s the deal…..in this particular story Saul was still King and the Philistines

were oppressing Israel…..there were no weapons on the Israelite side, because

they had been banned…..but the Philistines were threatening war and had

marched out to battle so Saul rallied up what he could but we’re told that many

of his soldiers were so scared they were in hiding……and it was bad…..the

Philistines were intent on ravaging the Israelites but Saul had a son, Jonathan, and

Jonathan just couldn’t abide by what he was seeing…….the Philistines army was

huge, and well stocked with weapons, and chariots and supplies, and they were

camped on one side of the valley and what Saul could muster was camped on the

other ridge across the valley…….Israel was intimidated and in hiding but Jonathan

had a notion……and he looked at his aide, his armor bearer, and said, “lets go over

to those uncircumcised and see if the Lord will work for us. For God is not

restrained to save by many or by few”…….look it up, that’s it…..he said, literally,

“let’s see if God is in it”……what kind of plan is that?! If I was the armor bearer I

might have taken issue with that kind of military planning…….I mean, really, what

it boiled down to was “I have an idea, let’s see if it works”……but his armor bearer

was as much a hero as Jonathan and he responded, “do all that is in your heart

and I will be there with you”…..so basically, two guys, up against an Army, not

even sure yet if they fully understand what God would do in it…….but they

started…..and that’s the rub……they. Just. Started………and the story goes that

teeth and hair were flying soon after as Jonathan and his armor bearer wiped out

an entire garrison of Philistines……just put a whoopin’ on ‘em……and it caught the

attention of Saul who could see and hear the fight across the way…..and it

galvanized the nation of Israel, and they came up out of hiding, with a renewed

sense of purpose, and they joined the fight, and they won……the victory was

huge…..but the outcome was originally uncertain…..the desire was great, the

talent was strong, the need was there, but what would the outcome be? because

on its face it made no sense…..it made no sense at all…..the difference between

Jonathan and his armor bearer and apparently everyone else in the entire nation

of Israel was that he was bold enough to JUST START……..

History is filled with the greatness that follows from someone who wasn’t great

being willing to step out into the unknown and JUST START…….it is the difference

between being willing to step out assertively and take a risk as opposed to being

stuck in a siege mentality……in a siege mentality you find yourself cowering down,

barricading the gates, and fretting over your resources to see how long they will

last…..in a siege mentality you find yourself preserving and protecting but not

moving…..in a siege mentality you are maintaining the status quo……in a siege

mentality you are just trying to hold on to what you’ve got and hope that help

eventually gets there……..it’s hard to start anything when you’re hunkered down

in a siege mentality……and when you “start” you have to actually

“go”……Jonathan could have taken two steps and stopped, and it would have

made sense……he had to Start and actually go all the way across the valley and up

the cliff and into the midst of the enemy before he could really know what the

outcome would be……

Look at history…..find the great moments…..you will find someone, or some

group, usually smaller in number or scale than their opposition, who stepped out

of the siege and did something that galvanized true change……they just started…..

I could name any number of moments in history that measure up the same

way…….Reagan said “tear down this wall” and soon after the fall of the Soviet

Union occurred…..Bill Gates decided to start a little company called Microsoft in

his garage and it has become the world leader and has a trillion dollar impact…….a

little known record company in Memphis, Tennessee called Sun records changed

the world of music because it took a chance on a young guy named Elvis Presley,

and later went on to sign Charlie Rich, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny

Cash…….in every one of those moments someone had to do something…..they

had to get out of the siege mentality….they had start and actually “GO”

……actually go across the valley to where the opposition was camped, and

sometimes not even knowing if it would work……..they had to start, and they had

to go…..

Old man I heard about used to say in an old man wisdom sort of way…..”Ah Lord,

a lot see but a few know, a lot start but few go”……

And that my friends is what happened with the Panama Canal…..Teddy Roosevelt

had a notion……Congress and the press and the public all thought it was crazy….it

had already been tried and had already failed by the French who lost an

estimated 22,000 men during their attempt!…..why try again……dig a canal 51

miles across the entire Isthmus of Panama? That’s crazy!....a water bridge to

connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans big enough for ships to pass through?

……but Teddy Roosevelt said that he knew that if he gave the project over to the

debate of the naysayers that they would debate it for 50 years…..so he

determined that he would rather dig the canal and let the naysayers debate him

for the next 50 years……so he dug the Panama Canal….and it started with a shovel

of dirt…..it started…..and it went on, and on, and over 5,600 men died during the

American construction of the Canal……The US Government spent $375 million to

build it, making it the most expensive project in US History to that time……that

would be the equivalent of $15.2 Billion in today’s dollars……..but they

started….and they got it done!

Today there are entire realms of commerce that use and rely on the Panama

Canal…..the shipbuilding industry uses the size and depth of the Panama Canal to

determine the size of the ships that are built all over the worldto this day the

worlds shipbuilding industry builds ships in a standard known as “Panamax”….a

Panamax ship can fit through the locks of the canal and since 5% of all global

maritime trade travels through the Panama Canal it means that nearly every ship

is built to Panamax standards…..40% of all US container ships go through the

Canal…..over $270 Billion dollars of cargo annually transits through the canal that

was started by a crazy idea from an American President……….it has become the

standard….it changed world commerce and opened up trade and removed

barriers…. And it all happened because Roosevelt just started…..

Somewhere along the way……somewhere in the midst of the siege…..someone

has to step out and say let’s see what happens here….and you might go across the

way and you might get skint up a might…..but in the middle of starting and going

you might get neck deep and find that God is in it, and the people who are around

you get roused up, and it could make all the difference…..we don’t have the

luxury of being in siege mentality…..we don’t…..the liberal left want’s our demise

and the demise of our culture…..and its going to take getting outside the

siege….starting….and going……

And that’s a wrap for the Rightside Way