Today I had the unexpected privilege of picking up a certain mr. meisburg from the airport. On the way, I listened to a lecture by Ravi Zacharias. I’ve heard this certain broadcast several times before. But today, a window was opened up to me and I saw pictures as Ravi spoke – pictures I had never seen before.

The first window was Abraham Lincoln, 17 years old, singing at his sister’s wedding. The words were from Matthew Henry, and Lincoln reworked them to rhyme:

“The woman was not taken from Adam’s feet we see,
So we must not abuse her, the meaning seems to be.
The woman was not taken from Adam’s head we know,
To show she must not rule him is evidently so.
The woman she was taken from under Adam’s arm,
So she must be protected from injuries and harm.”

Can you imagine a lanky 17-year-old developing man, wearing the best cloths he could find, singing in his searching voice at his sister’s wedding? That was Abraham Lincoln. How much of Matthew Henry did Lincoln read? Did he know that page well? How long did it take him to re-work the words and set them to music? Did he practice singing it out in the woods? F. W. Boreham takes us on a journey to show us how one of Matthew Henry’s books ended up in Lincoln’s possession:

“The quaint verses, as anyone with half and eye can see, are merely Matthew Henry turned into rhyme. But what did Abraham Lincoln at 17 know of Matthew Henry? Yet one remembers an incident, described by Judge Herndon, a thing that happened some years before Lincoln’s birth. A camp meeting had been in progress for several days. Religious fervor ran at fever heat. Gathered in complete accord, the company awaited with awed intensity the falling of celestial fire. Suddenly the camp was stirred. Something extraordinary had happened. The kneeling multitude sprang to its feet and broke into shouts which rang through the primeval shades. A young man who had been absorbed in prayer began leaping, dancing and shouting, Simultaneously a young woman sprang forward, her hat falling to the ground, her hair tumbling about her shoulders in graceful braids. Her eyes fixed heavenwards, her lips vocal with strange unearthly sound, her rapture increased until grasping the hand of the young man, they blended their voices in ecstatic melody. These two, Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks were married a week later, and became the parents of the great President.”

Boreham further tells us that Peter Cartwright, the leader of those camp meetings, loved the writings of Matthew Henry, and gave Nancy a book by him. Henry impacted Cartwright, Cartwright impacted Nancy, Nancy impacted Abraham. Decades after Matthew Henry, we see a man in the White House, his hands in face, pleading with God for a Nation.

This was the second window. Lincoln treasured all through life his mother’s last words: “I am going away from you, Abraham, and shall not return. I know that you will be a good boy, and you will be kind to your Father. I want you to live as I have taught you, to love your Heavenly Father and to keep His commandments.” Now we find the man after his long and hard wrestle with depression. A man who, after proposing to a certain girl, was told no. A man who lost race after race. And now, in the White House, he wrestles with His heavenly Father.

On July 5, President Lincoln visited [General Sickles]. Sickles later claimed that during this visit, Mr. Lincoln related why he was confident of victory. After the Confederate invaded the North, he said he “went to my room and got down on my knees in prayer. Never before had I prayed with so much earnestness. I wish I could repeat my prayer. I felt I must put all my trust in Almighty God. He gave our people the best country ever given to man. He alone could save it from destruction. I had tried my best to do my duty and had found myself unequal to the task The burden was more than I could bear. I asked Him to help us victory now. I was sure my prayer was answered. I had no misgivings about the result at Gettysburg.”(source)

This second window showed me a President wrestling with God, just as the Kings of Israel wrestled with Him. Today, I fear, most kings show no regard for God, thus God must send His prophets. And it thus becomes the prophet who wrestles with God. Habbakuk. Daniel. Jeremiah. These all wrestled, and God always won.

How precious is life. It is God who has fearfully and wonderfully made us. Once we were not, now we are. The reason for God’s existence is inside of Himself. The reason for our existence is outside ourselves. “When Christ, who is our life appears …”