The King's Speech

Lani and I recently saw The King’s Speech, a movie masterfully portraying England’s King George VI and his struggle to overcome a lifelong speech impediment. The climax of the movie comes with his successful delivery of a radio address early in World War II to fearful subjects around the world needing inspiration from their king. In researching George VI for my book on World War II, I learned only that he was not “an eloquent speaker.” I had no idea of the struggle that he went through to encourage his countrymen during some of the darkest days in history.

Another fact about George VI was not so well concealed. That was his faith in God and his belief that God would see his nation through the crisis of that time. In another radio address at the very darkest period in 1939 he quoted an English poet with an amazing message:

…I feel that we may all find a message of encouragement in the lines which, in my closing words, I would to say to you: “I said to the man who stood at the Gate of the Year, ‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’ And he replied, ‘Go out into the darkness, and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light, and safer than a known way.’”
May the Almighty Hand guide and uphold us all.

There is a source of ultimate safety in this world, and there is nothing more important that any leader can do for his family, employees, or subjects than to show his or her own faith and reliance on God and his eternal promises.

For you were once in darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. ~Ephesians 5:8

(More about this story can be found in Battlefields & Blessings: Stories of Faith and Courage from World War II, page 6)