Towards the end of my first tour in Ulster in the infantry role my Commanding Officer came to tell me that a source had given information that the Irish Republican Army was planning to shoot a soldier at one of the checkpoints which my squadron was manning to control entrance into the City of Londonderry and a large shopping precinct running parallel to the River Foyle.
My soldiers had been working a 17-hour day for nearly four months, and I had no reserves to deploy on mobile patrols beyond the checkpoints. Knowing that the Regiment who preceded us had lost several soldiers during their tour, I recall kneeling at my bed that night to commit the situation in prayer but got into bed without any tangible sense of assurance.
My waking thought the next morning was accompanied by the recollection of a verse which I had learned a few years earlier – ‘No weapon that is formed against you shall prosper…’ (Isaiah 54 v 17). I felt a total sense of release as so appropriate a promise had been given me.
On a Saturday afternoon shortly afterwards one of the checkpoints reported a crack in the distance and a ‘ping’ on the railings behind where one of my soldiers was standing. We mounted a follow-up without tracing a gunman or weapon, but two weeks later returned to Germany grateful that we had lost no one nor had we taken a life either. The Lord’s promise had been fulfilled and prayer answered.
*Photo credit: https://www.pexels.com/@safiye-altinkum-58861460