Dear friend,
I want to tell you about something that happened this week that almost nobody is talking about correctly.
On Saturday night, the United States was hours away from launching what the president himself described as the largest military strike since World War II. The planes were ready. The targets were selected. The order was prepared.
And then he stopped.
Not because he was forced to. Not because he had no choice. Because he chose to. Because Saudi Arabia and the UAE and Qatar came to him and asked him to give diplomacy one more chance. And he said yes.
His enemies immediately called it weakness. A retreat. A humiliation. A ten foot golden trophy mocking him appeared on the streets of New York within days. The people who have been trying to destroy him for years seized on the pullback as proof that he is not the man his supporters believe he is.
I want to tell you what I think actually happened.
Because I have read this Book every morning for fifty years. And I have seen this before.
Before I show you the pattern let me place something in your hands.
I wrote a guide called They Tried To Stop Him: What The Bible Says About Donald Trump. It traces exactly this kind of moment — when the chosen man does something his enemies interpret as weakness and his supporters struggle to understand — through Scripture. Many of you have told me it gave you a framework for moments exactly like this one. You can find it by clicking the image below:
Alternatively, you may find it here: https://fatherthomasletters.com/products/they-tried-to-stop-him-what-the-bible-says-about-donald-trump
David in the cave.
You will find this story in First Samuel chapter 24. Saul had been hunting David for years. Trying to kill him. Sending armies after him. Driving him into the wilderness. And David had done nothing to deserve any of it except be chosen by God for something Saul could not accept.
And then one day Saul walked into the very cave where David and his men were hiding.
Alone. Vulnerable. Completely unaware that the man he had been hunting for years was standing in the shadows behind him.
David's men whispered to him. This is the moment. God has delivered your enemy into your hands. Kill him now. End it. You have the power. Use it.
David crept forward in the darkness. He had his sword. He had the opportunity. He had the justification. Every rational argument said this was the moment to act.
And he cut off the corner of Saul's robe.
That was all. He let Saul walk out of that cave alive.
And afterward David's heart troubled him even for that small act. He told his men he would not lift his hand against the Lord's anointed. Not because he was afraid. Because he understood something about power that his men did not yet understand.
The hardest thing a powerful man can do is not use his power when every instinct and every argument says he should.
Moses at the mountain.
In Exodus chapter 32 Moses came down from Mount Sinai to find the Israelites worshipping a golden calf. God had seen it too. And God said something to Moses that should stop every reader cold.
He said — leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.
God was offering Moses everything. The destruction of the people who had betrayed Him. A fresh start. A new nation built from Moses alone. The power to end it all and begin again.
And Moses said no.
He stood before God and argued for the people who had just humiliated everything he had worked for. He reminded God of His promises to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. He asked God to relent.
And Scripture says God relented.
The most powerful being in the universe pulled back from destruction because one man stood in the gap and chose intercession over retaliation.
Moses had the ear of God. He chose not to use it for vengeance.
Jesus in Gethsemane.
In Matthew chapter 26 Jesus said something that I have returned to more times than I can count.
He said do you think I cannot call on my Father and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?
Twelve legions. Seventy two thousand angels. At a word. Available immediately. Enough power to end everything that was happening to him in an instant.
He did not call them.
Not because he could not. Because he understood that the thing God was accomplishing required him to go through what was coming rather than around it. That the restraint was not weakness. It was the assignment.
The soldiers who came to arrest him fell backward to the ground when he said I am he. They experienced a fraction of what twelve legions of angels would have meant and it knocked them off their feet. The power was real. The restraint was a choice.
Now let me tell you what I see when I look at Saturday night.
A man who was hours away from the largest military strike since World War II. Who had the planes ready and the targets selected and the justification in hand. Who chose, when allies came to him and asked for one more chance at peace, to say yes.
His enemies called it weakness. They always call restraint weakness when a man they hate is the one showing it.
But I have read this Book too many times to accept that framing.
David in the cave was not weak. He was exercising a discipline that his men could not understand and that his enemy did not deserve. Moses at the mountain was not weak. He was standing in a gap that nobody else was willing to stand in. Jesus in Gethsemane was not weak. He was choosing the harder path because he understood what the easier one would cost.
The willingness to hold power without using it is one of the rarest and most costly things a human being can do. It is almost never recognized as strength in the moment it is happening. It is almost always mocked as failure by the people who do not understand what they are watching.
That does not make it failure. It makes it exactly what Scripture describes as the pattern of the man who is operating on a timeline and with a purpose that the people mocking him cannot yet see.
I want to be honest with you.
I do not know if the deal comes together. I do not know if the Strait of Hormuz stays open or closes again. I do not know what happens next week or next month or how this ends.
What I know is that the man standing at the centre of all of this made a choice this weekend that the Bible has a name for. And the people who are mocking that choice have no idea what they are watching.
They never do. That is the pattern.
In Proverbs chapter 16 verse 32 Solomon wrote something that I have been thinking about all week.
Better a patient person than a warrior. One with self control than one who takes a city.
Better a patient person than a warrior.
The world celebrates the warrior. The Bible celebrates the man with self control. The man who has the power to take the city and chooses patience instead. The man who was hours away from the largest strike since World War II and pulled back because he decided peace was worth one more attempt.
That is not weakness. That is one of the hardest things a human being can do.
God bless you, friend. Hold onto that today.
With you in prayer,
Father Thomas
This week I want you to do three things:
One. Read First Samuel chapter 24 in full. The whole chapter. Pay attention to how David explains his restraint to Saul after letting him walk out of the cave. Pay attention to what Saul says in response. Notice that the restraint accomplished something the sword never could have.
Two. Read Proverbs chapter 16 verse 32 every morning this week. Write it down if you need to. Better a patient person than a warrior. One with self control than one who takes a city. Let it reframe what you are watching in the news from weakness into something the Bible actually celebrates.
Three. Read They Tried To Stop Him this week: https://fatherthomasletters.com/products/they-tried-to-stop-him-what-the-bible-says-about-donald-trump
The pattern I described this morning — the chosen man, the power held back, the mockery from enemies, the vindication that follows — is the whole thesis of that guide. This week's news is another chapter of the same story. Read it and see if you recognize what you have been watching.