{"id":4426,"date":"2025-02-20T07:45:57","date_gmt":"2025-02-20T12:45:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=4426"},"modified":"2025-02-20T07:45:57","modified_gmt":"2025-02-20T12:45:57","slug":"more-than-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/20\/more-than-enough\/","title":{"rendered":"More Than Enough"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>

The B-17 Flying Fortress was America\u2019s workhorse heavy bomber during World War II.\u00a0

Before Germany and Japan surrendered, 12,731 of the planes dropped more than 1.5 million tons<\/em> of bombs.

Among the young men on those bombing runs were actors Clark Gable and James Stewart; NFL coach Tom Landry; Star Trek <\/em>creator Gene Roddenberry; and future presidential candidate George McGovern, who piloted 35 missions in the \u201cother Boeing,\u201d the B-24.

The Flying Fortress had a reputation for toughness.\u00a0It could withstand incredible damage, yet remain airborne.

Even so, the B-17\u2019s and their 10-man crews were often sitting ducks for enemy fighters and flak.\u00a0Between 1942 and 1945, more than 40,000 American airmen never made it back home.

Elmer Bendiner, who would one day become a writer and journalist, served as navigator in the B-17 Tondelayo.<\/em>

On a bombing run over Kassel, Germany, multiple shells ripped into the bomber.\u00a0One of them hit the fuel tank. Bendiner and the rest of the crew braced for the explosion that would bring their lives to a fiery end.

But it never happened.\u00a0None of the other shells exploded, either.\u00a0

In his book The Fall of Fortresses, <\/em>Bendiner remembers, \u201cLater, as I reflected on the miracle of a 20 mm shell piercing the fuel tank without touching off an explosion, our pilot, Bohn Fawkes, told me it was not quite that simple.\u201d

The morning after the bombing run, Fawkes had gone to the crew chief in the hope of retrieving a good-luck souvenir \u2013 the shell that had lodged in the fuel tank but failed to detonate.

All of the \u201cduds\u201d that had hit the Tondelayo<\/em>, including the one in the fuel tank, had already been sent to the armorers to be defused.\u00a0There they made an astonishing discovery.\u00a0They were empty \u2013 \u201cclean as a whistle and just as harmless,\u201d Fawkes told his navigator.\u00a0

But one of them was not quite empty.\u00a0

Inside was a piece of paper.\u00a0There was a message on it, written in the Czech language.\u00a0After a brief search, an American intelligence officer found someone who could read it.\u00a0

It said, \u201cThis is all we can do for you now.\u201d\u00a0<\/em>

Somewhere in a munitions factory \u2013 presumably in Nazi-occupied Czech territory, and presumably staffed by forced labor \u2013 someone had made a quiet, audacious decision.\u00a0

One or more of the bomb-makers had decided not to arm their bombs.\u00a0In the midst of a conflict that was tearing the world apart, and threatening the futures of millions of people, this was the one humble thing they could do.

And it saved 10 lives.

We can do something similar. \u00a0

Even if you\u2019re not in a position of public authority today, you can be a servant.\u00a0A few quiet acts of selflessness have more power to transform human hearts than myriad commands.

Even if you\u2019re not rich, you can be a \u201csmile millionaire.\u201d\u00a0Your willingness to smile can turn an uncertain conversation into an offer of friendship.\u00a0

Even if you\u2019re in the midst of major conflict, you don\u2019t have to arm that bomb you were thinking of using. \u201cA gentle answer turns away wrath,\u201d says Proverbs 15:1.\u00a0

Servanthood.\u00a0Gentleness. Humility.\u00a0Maybe that\u2019s all you can do right now.

But that will be more than enough<\/em>.

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here The B-17 Flying Fortress was America\u2019s workhorse heavy bomber during World War II.\u00a0 Before Germany and Japan surrendered, 12,731 of the planes dropped more than 1.5 million tons of bombs. Among the young men on those bombing runs were actors Clark Gable and James Stewart; NFL coach Tom Landry; Star Trek… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4427,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[131,350],"class_list":["post-4426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-humility","tag-servanthood"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4426"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4428,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4426\/revisions\/4428"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}