Road to Unafraid

I am reading The Road to Unafraid, by Jeff Struecker. Jeff was one of the Rangers portrayed in the movie, Black Hawk Down. He writes about dealing with his fears from childhood through his military career.  In one story, he writes about coming out of a terrible firefight in the streets of Mogadishu, losing one man and another seriously wounded.  When he arrives back at base, he vented to God saying, “God, like, so what’s the deal here? How come this all fell apart on me? What am I suppose to do next?”

If you are in the military, it is just a matter of time before you question God about what just happened. All of us have those moments in life. I believe it is a question that God wants us to answer. Do we really believe that He cares about us, that He knows what is going on, and that He has the power to do anything about it? If we ask the questions, and get answers, then we can act on these beliefs in future situations. God wants us to know that He does care, that He know us, and that He has the power to act.

In Mark 4, Jesus takes his small group of disciples across the sea at night in a terrible storm. He is sleeping while the disciples are frantically trying to keep the boat afloat. They wake Jesus and ask Him, ““Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?” Jesus answers this question, and the issue of His knowledge and power in His response and actions.

Does Jesus Care? – Where were they going on the boat? They were going to the other side to have an encounter with one man. He was a man who lived in a graveyard, possessed by 1000 demons. Jesus traveled at night in a storm to rescue one man, because He cares. He cares enough for one outcast to risk it all. He cares for you too. He not only wanted His disciples to know that He did care, but to ask them if they were willing to care enough for others to allow God to take them through storms to reach them. Jesus does care for you enough to die on a cross. Military men and women care enough for us to put their lives at risk to protect us. Will you allow Jesus to lead you through storms so that you may care for others?

Does Jesus Know? – Have you ever felt like you were going through a storm and Jesus was sleeping? Does He not realize the severity of the situation? Jesus knew about the demon-possessed man on the other side of the sea. Jesus knew what His disciples needed to learn about Himself. Jesus knows the storm you are in too. He also knows how He can use your storm to rescue others around you. If you knew about the pain of those around you, would you be willing to take some pain to heal their pain? Jesus knows, will you allow Him to use your life as healing ointment for others?

Does Jesus have Power? – Does Jesus have the power to do something about the situation? Well, He stood up and with just His words, He calmed the storm. He then went across the sea and cast 1000 demons out of the man and into pigs. He has the power to save our souls! God has the power to use your life to exercise His power. Will you trust Him to use His power in His wisdom?

The military takes care of people, gathers more intelligence, and has more power than any other earthly institution. Military men and women experience the responsibility that brings. The people of the nation come to trust the military will act on their behalf for the benefit of the world. Will you trust Jesus, who cares deeply, knows all, and is all-powerful, to act on your behalf for the benefit of the world?

Father, I trust you.

Where Love is Forged

William Manchester, who served as an enlisted Marine on Okinawa during the most intense fighting in the spring of 1945, wrote of his survival in his book Goodbye Darkness:

Today the ascent of Shugar Loaf [on Okinawa] takes a few minutes. In 1945 it took ten days and cost 7547 Marine casualties. And beneath my feet, where mud had been deeply veined with human blood, the healing mantle of turf [I murmured a prayer: God] take away this murdering hate and give us thine own eternal love. And then, in one of those great thundering jolts in which man’s real motives are revealed to him. I understood why I jumped hospital and, in violation of orders, returned to the front and almost certain death. It was an act of love. Those men on the line were my family, my home. They were closer to me than I can say, closer than any friends had been or ever would be. They had never let me down, and I couldn’t do it to them. I had to be with them, rather than let them die and me live in the knowledge that I might have saved them. Men, I now know, do not fight for flag or country, for the Marine Corps or glory or any other abstraction. They fight for one another.

Can you imagine a more deeper love than that which is forged in the mist of battle? A place where you experience giving your life for others and other giving their lives for you. It is a place where you hear a man’s last wishes as he lies dying. It is a place where you become the only person to connect a dying man to his family as you carry his last wishes to them.

When you experience that kind of connection and love, other things become pale in importance. That deep love causes you to loose interest in the material things of life and desire to live in that love.

John 13:34 says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” The disciples experienced a love from Jesus that at the end of His life included washing their feet and dying on the cross for them. He tells them to love others, “As I have loved you.” The love they experienced transformed who they were so that everything changed. It caused them to have new priorities and new values and motives. They now lived to love others.

Jesus calls us to have that kind of love. We must remember the process to have that kind of love. We learn it and experience it from Jesus, then we can love others as He loved us. Where does this process take place? It takes place at the cross of Jesus. When we stand at the foot of the cross, we experience a place of death, where Jesus gave His life for us. We hear his last words, “Father, forgive them.” This place at the cross is also a place of our death. If us saying we will die to our own selves and ask Jesus to live through us.

“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” – Galatians 2:20

Father, thank you for your love for me shown through Jesus Christ. Let it transform my way of living.