[Wednesday's Devotional] - Britannia rule the waves??

"Rule, Britannia! Britannia rule the waves”  …Err no! This is where James Thompson the writer of  “Rule Britannia” and I definitely part company.  As we saw yesterday, the Bible is very clear that only God rules the waves.  While it is certainly true that any successful island nation has to be very competent at seafaring, and the British certainly have been, we don’t rule the waves.  To suggest that we do, even symbolically, is to evidence an attitude that seeks to dethrone God and place the nation in his place.  James Thompson’s poem certainly shows him to be Biblically literate and I wonder if he thought through what he was suggesting here.

We do not rule the waves, only God does.  When Jesus calmed the storm (Matthew 5) the disciples asked “what sort of man is this?” as the storm stopped on Jesus’ command and they began to realize who he is.  Even if we could invent a machine to control the waves, we still wouldn’t be able to control the forces that the wind and waves point to: the power of death and ultimate destruction.  Only God can handle those and he has done for us in Jesus.  Praise God!

So here we see the negative side of nationalism. Nationalism can lead to conceit, arrogance, the belief in racial superiority. As a nation we have done many things to be proud of, but we have also done things that we need to be ashamed of.  In previous centuries, we built fortunes on slavery. We arrogantly colonized many parts of the world and claimed that we owned them. I am not saying that every action of the British Empire was wrong and certainly many of them were paternal and helpful, but who were we to claim ownership over other lands? While we are on the subject, I am not convinced that we have ever properly repented of colonialism. Even if it happened generations ago and the current generation has no personal responsibility, we need to cleanse that attitude form our national psyche or we run the risk of doing it again sometime. If the angels ever discuss individual nations, I wonder what the opinion of the Heavenly court is of Great Britain?

For prayer:

Talk to God about our actions as a nation, past and present.
Ask him what he thinks of us and seek his guidance.

John Martin-Jones