One of my favorite movies is the academy award winning movie Patton. George C. Scott gives a riveting performance about a man seeking to fulfill his destiny in a modern world which little values his ancient warrior instincts. At the end of the movie we hear the controversial, quixotic General recounting the glory of the warriors of the past whom he so reveres:

"For over a thousand years Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of triumph, a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeteers, musicians and strange animals from conquered territories, together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments. The conquerors rode in a trimphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. Sometimes his children robed in white stood with him in the chariot or rode the trace horses. A slave stood behind the conqueror holding a golden crown and whispering in his ear a warning: that all glory is fleeting."

Dr. Laura Nash in her book Believers in Business quotes former Secretary of State James Baker at the 1990 National Prayer breakfast, "Someone asked me what was the most important thing I had learned since being in Washington. I replied that it was the fact that temporal power is fleeting." Baker went on to observe that once driving through the White House gates he saw a man walking alone on Pennsylvania Avenue and recognized him as having been Secretary of State in a previous adminstration. "There he was alone - no reporters, no security, no adoring public, no trappings of power. Just one solitary man alone with his thoughts. And that mental picture continually serves to remind me of the impermanence of power and the impermanence of place."

Having spent twenty eight years in Washington in various senior policy and management positions in the government, I too have often been struck by the same images. There are the former colleagues and associates who were once at the top of the Washington game only to become at best a trivia question at a Georgetown cocktail party. While they last the trappings of power can be a pretty heady brew, but it doesn’t last - after all they are merely trappings. For many who have roamed the halls of Congress or occupied lush executive suites, the power, influence, fame and success they beheld and partook were vapors. Right now - what we do, what we say, what we think - ultimately counts not for right now but forever. Apart from Jesus Christ all we perceive at the moment to be fulfilling, exhilarating and rewarding are as writings in the sand. For apart from Christ we can do nothing. And as Martin Luther noted about those words of Jesus, nothing is not a little something.

Indeed the world's glory is always fleeting; yesterday's celebrities are soon forgotten; discarded for new ones. U-hauls don't accompany the funeral hearse to the cemetery. Patton was relegated to a desk job in post-war Germany and died not on the field of battle with other warriors but in an automobile accident. Glory is not ours. It is not an intrinsic quality of man but extrinsic, sovereignly and graciously bestowed upon us by God as His adopted children to reflect the glory of Christ Jesus, our older brother. And His glory is not fleeting but radiates forever and ever and ever. As John Piper reminds us, God is most glorified in us when we are most satisified in Him.