The King Who Did Not Want to Speak

In the autumn of 1939, King George VI sat in Buckingham Palace facing a microphone he dreaded. Britain had just declared war on Germany. The nation was terrified, and its king — a man who had never wanted the throne — struggled with a stammer so severe that public speaking felt like walking through fire. He wanted to decline the Christmas broadcast. He wanted someone else to carry the words. But the people needed assurance, and the assurance had to come whether the king felt ready or not.

That Christmas Day, George VI leaned into the microphone and spoke halting, hard-won words to millions of listeners huddled around their radios. He closed with a poem by Minnie Louise Haskins: "Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way." A reluctant king became a sign of steadiness for a shaking nation.

In Isaiah 7, the Almighty offered King Ahaz a sign — anything he wanted, as deep as Sheol or as high as heaven. Ahaz refused, disguising his unbelief as reverence. But God would not be stopped by a king's reluctance. The sign came anyway: a child named Immanuel, God With Us. The Lord does not wait for our courage or our faith to be perfected. He presses His presence into our fear, speaks into our trembling, and gives us signs of faithfulness we never thought to ask for.