Month: November 2018

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Adapt and Overcome

After I finished Air Force Basic Training, I moved to a different part of Lackland Air Force Base (AFB) near San Antonio, TX. Here I began trying out to become a survival school instructor, officially called a SERE Specialist (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape). At the time, this two-week course was called SEREIIC – SERE Instructor Indoctrination Course. If you passed this course, you moved up to Fairchild AFB near Spokane, Washington to take part in a longer, 6-month training course.

Just because this course was only two weeks long didn’t mean we only spent two weeks there. Having just arrived from Basic Training, all new SEREIIC trainees were skinny, had no muscle, still called everyone “Sir” or “Ma’am,” and generally were not suited for the physical rigors of the upcoming training. Two weeks is simply not enough time to transform skinny “Basic” bodies into something strong enough to withstand the requirements of the course. Even though the course was only two weeks, some students spent months there developing muscle mass and required skills. A few months after I first showed up at SEREIIC, I was 30-40 pounds heavier, mostly from all the workouts we did.

The training could be incredibly stressful, both physically and mentally. It’s not on par with Navy SEAL training, by any stretch, but they use some of the same elements. Room and uniform inspections that require impeccable attention to detail; sleep deprivation; spending hours a day doing physical training; and constant harassment from your instructors and others in charge of you. The whole purpose of this introductory course is to weed out the people that want to be there from the people that are less than fully committed. The instructors are training you to adapt and overcome. In a survival situation, when you are alone, exhausted, and it seems like there’s a never-ending list of hurdles you need to overcome, your life itself can depend on your willingness to overcome doubt, get up off the ground and keep going, no matter how much you just want to lay there a little bit longer.

We didn’t always see it while it was happening, but the misery we endured built fortitude and perseverance in us. The physical training on its own was enough to make some people drop out. Add to that various types of verbal harassment and other pressures, and it became incredibly stressful. I showed up with a group of about 10 or 11 guys, and the guys who had been around for awhile thought it was really fun to haze us. Our first night we were part of the “Newbie 500,” more or less a couple of hours where the students with seniority made us work out in absurd ways until they got tired of messing with us. Pushups, flutter kicks, squats, sprints, bear crawls, crab crawls, and a number of other activities too difficult to describe here, all of them exhausting or painful.

We were only seriously hazed once, but it continued on and off until the guys with seniority either graduated or washed out of the course. The heavy duty physical training came as a part of our normal duty day, under the supervision of instructors. During our duty day (when we were actually at work), any time we entered or left the dorms, the chow hall, or the school, all of us did a synchronized set of about 25 pushups. To be honest, it looked pretty cool when there were 20 of us doing pushups in unison, but we had to do it as a team, or else we’d have to start over and probably pay some kind of physical penalty on top of it for not working together. Between the normal course of traveling between buildings, doing normal PT, missing details during our uniform or room inspections, and after-hours “smoke sessions,” there were days where we did a thousand pushups.

There was plenty of running and rucking, too. We had a couple of tracks, one of them a quarter mile and another one a full mile. To help build our bodies’ tolerance, the new trainees were issued ruck sacks that they were to fill with “only” 45 pounds’ worth of rocks or anything else that could get the scale past the minimum. Over time the load grew. Our instructor cadre would tell us to either run or ruck some seemingly impossible distance in some improbably short amount of time. We had this one guy that, once the instructors were out of earshot, would always start complaining “Dude, there’s no possible way we can make it that far that fast!” It never failed. At first we felt the same way as he did, but over time we learned not to think like him, instead saying “you might be right, but c’mon, let’s argue about it along the way.”

A funny thing happened during our stay there at SEREIIC. We got stronger, and our confidence grew. The ruck sacks got heavier, but we could handle it. We became faster, and could go farther. Pushups weren’t so scary, they just became part of the day’s routine. We were able to smash through the mental barriers we had put up for ourselves and accomplish just about every goal the cadre set before us.

I’ll have more stories to share from this chapter of my life, but for this post I want to convey this main point: if you want to do great things for Christ, you have to be able to look at seemingly insurmountable obstacles, take a deep breath, and start moving. If you are a child of God, there is unimaginable power living within you! Do not be afraid or discouraged!

Break loose from mediocrity, and start climbing the huge wall that stands between where you are and reaching your full potential as an impactful Christ-follower. Want to know a secret that’s kinda scary but also kinda exhilarating? After you make it past that wall, there’s going to be another, bigger one behind it. And there’s another one behind that one. And another one. And on, and on, and on. Each one you overcome, though, will either arm you with new knowledge, or show you that you can do things you once thought impossible. Once you’ve scaled a number of these metaphorical walls, you’ll no longer flinch at doing things you believe to be beyond your capability.

God has a way of putting big challenges in His followers’ lives. It’s important to remember that the things you faced yesterday have prepared you for the challenges you’ll face today and tomorrow. It’s scary sometimes, but if He’s placed an impossible task in front of you, He’s also made a way for you to get past it. Will you start complaining that it looks impossible, or will you pick up your ruck and start moving?

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Playing To Not Lose

Hopefully you all had a great Thanksgiving!

Some movies just go with certain holidays. I’m sure many of you either have a tradition of watching certain movies around Christmas or Thanksgiving. For me, the movie “Rocky” (and by extension, the rest of the Rocky movies) are Thanksgiving movies.

There’s a movie that just came out this past week. Although I haven’t seen it, “Creed 2” is the latest in a line of movies that involve the boxing character Rocky Balboa. I’m a fan of most of the franchise (they could’ve skipped “Rocky V”), so I’ll piggyback off of the latest release to make a spiritual point. 🙂

I didn’t ever really think that I’d have to include a spoiler alert for a movie that’s about 40 years old, but if you don’t want to know how “Rocky” or “Rocky II” end, you may want to watch them before finishing today’s post.

The Rocky movies are American classics. The early portion of the series is about how a down-on-his-luck amateur boxer, Rocky Balboa (played by Sylvester Stallone), gets a dream shot: to take on the world champion, Apollo Creed, for the world heavyweight boxing championship.

Rocky’s not a great fighter, but he can sure take a beating and keep on going. At the end of the fight, Rocky loses, but he’s still standing after 15 rounds of being pummeled by the world champ, blowing away everyone’s expectations. Apollo won the fight according to the judges, but he didn’t actually defeat Rocky in the eyes of many spectators.

In the second movie, the champ receives hate mail from critics that think he’s a fraud. He’s upset at being accused of faking the fight, of carrying this “bum” through an entire bout. To prove to the world that the Balboa fight was just a fluke, he pursues a rematch with Rocky. He intends to destroy Balboa so he can show everyone that Apollo Creed is still worthy of being called a champion. Balboa eventually agrees to a rematch, and the two slug it out once again.

(I’m sorry, I’m a big fan of Rocky, so I’m including a fun clip just to show you what kind of guy he is. In this clip, he’s on his way to his rematch with Apollo Creed, but he wants to make a quick stop and link up with his priest, Father Carmine. He’s already running late, but being the great theologian and philosopher that he is, he has his priorities.)

Of course, the rematch with Creed goes to the fifteenth round again. By this point, Creed is way ahead on points; all he needs to do is stay away from Rocky and he’ll win the fight, but he’ll be no better off than he was after the first fight, so he continues trying to knock out Balboa. Both men are exhausted, have swollen faces, and lack any semblance of footwork at this point. At the end they’re just standing toe to toe, swinging with everything they’ve got left to try to land knockout punches on their opponent. In a true Hollywood moment, they simultaneously land punches on each other, leading to a double knockdown.

The referee began counting. If they both got to their feet before “10,” they’d return to the fight. If only Creed got to his feet, he’d win the fight and retain the title. If Balboa was the only one that made it to his feet, he’d win and be crowned the new heavyweight champ. In this situation, the rules stipulate that if nobody gets up by the time the referee counts to 10, the fight ends in a draw, and whoever holds the title will retain it by default. Dazed and drained, both Creed and Balboa struggle to get oriented and begin trying to stand up. I’ll embed a clip of the end of the fight at the bottom of the post.

Here’s the point I’m trying to make. There’s a difference between “playing to win” and “playing to not lose.” As Christians, we’re called to bring Jesus to all that don’t know about Him. Those that accept Christ as Savior cross over from spiritual death to new spiritual life. Our “default setting” when we’re born is a life of sin that we can’t escape on our own; we need to make a transition to escape a fate of eternal separation from God after we die.

If you believe the Bible, you believe that Satan is prowling, looking for souls to divert and devour. He doesn’t need to convert anyone, because they’re already his. All he needs to do is prevent conversions from happening. So in that sense, all he needs to do is play to not lose.

Here’s where we come in. It’s our job to work toward those conversions, offering people the truth and a way out of their default course. It’s not an easy thing. Every person reading this post has a different collection of talents, resources, social circles, and spiritual gifts at their disposal.

Even though they don’t know it, there are people counting on you to carry the truth to them. Some will be open to it, others won’t, but it’s going to take more than a half-hearted effort to make a difference.

For their sake, play to win.

(The part I mentioned starts around 1:30, but I’m including the whole final round.)

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Happy Thanksgiving

Today I’d like to do something a little different.

I’ve been posting to this blog for a little more than a month and a half now. Even though I’m the main author, I don’t think that I should be the only one with some input.

In the coming weeks, I’d like to figure out a way to enable some discussion. It’s fun for me to think back on some of these experiences, but my main goal in sharing these posts is to encourage you to step out in faith to act on the idea(s) God’s been placing in your life. While I believe it’s good for me to start the discussion, I believe the real value is going to be in readers echoing the points I highlight; I think people would benefit from some “testimonials” from other people that they, too, have experienced the things I’m writing about.

For some of you, I’m just a guy that writes stories about the crazy things he’s seen or done. For others though, I’m a portion of the overall way God might be speaking to you about something He’d like you to embark upon. I’ll be honest, I have no clue what God would like for you to do, but with your talents, interests, and resources, you can make a profound difference when you fulfill the role God is offering you.

Remember my challenge from the last post: the idea that you keep coming back to, that thing God’s been whispering in your ear that you can’t get away from…tell someone about it. I’m embedding the same video from last time. If it helps, use it as a way to start the discussion with someone while you’re with them this holiday.

I Have To – Promotional Trailer from Christy Fay on Vimeo.

If, at this point you don’t have any ideas of what you’re supposed to do, you can still put your creativity or other gifts to work. Here are some ideas you can work on:

  • Many people that are open to hearing about Jesus and the Bible feel uncomfortable walking into a church; is there a way you can either make church feel less intimidating for them, or is there a way you can bring church to people on their terms?
  • It’s very rare for people to have a “BANG!” kind of conversion experience. The truth is, many people are searching for the truth, and keep coming back to Christianity for one reason or another, but they often need time to wrestle with the things they’re hearing and learning from church and other Christian leaders. Can you think of a way to reach, assist, and encourage those individuals, either virtually or face-to-face?
  • In just about any aspect of life, there are people with abilities and resources, and there are people with needs. Within your sphere of influence, can you come up with a way to match them to each other?
  • The older people among us have seen and been a part of incredible things, and have a valuable amount of life experience. The younger people among us have energy, enthusiasm, and are fluent in technology. How can we marry experience, enthusiasm, and skillsets to accomplish amazing things for God’s glory? If you’re not up for cracking the code on this one, consider making at least one friend from every decade of life, and challenge others to do the same.
  • Help explain to me how to set up a discussion page on WordPress. 🙂 If that won’t work, will comments be enough for readers to encourage and cheer on other readers? Would it work better on the Dare Greatly Now Facebook page?

There are lots of ways to employ your gifts, these are just a few examples that require constant energy and effort from people. I’m hopeful that having fresh sets of eyes will come up with new, creative solutions. If none of them sound quite right to you, and you see some other problem staring you in the face, maybe that’s your calling. You’re the only one that can do everything you can do. If you don’t do it, you’re leaving some of your potential unfulfilled.

Today I have much to be thankful for. One of the biggest things is that God has equipped us with different talents, resources, interests, and spiritual gifts. Not only does He hand us these things, but He gives us the free will to choose to use (or not use) them for His glory. He won’t make you do it by forcing you to become some grudgingly compliant subordinate. He invites you to come along, making you a willing (and often, excited) volunteer!

Another thing for which I’m thankful is the difference that you can make if you accept the challenge God gives you. As a Christian, there’s a power living inside of you that’s greater than you can imagine. Don’t stifle it. Letting it go unused is like leaving a Lamborghini locked in the garage. Turn it loose and get a taste of what that engine can do.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

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Can You Ever “Safely” Jump Off A Cliff?

When I was a kid I loved climbing stuff. That held true as I got older, but I also found out that if you have the right equipment, it could be a lot more fun coming down.

This is how I got interested in rappelling. I don’t remember how I got started with it, probably on a youth group trip to a climbing gym or something. I started thinking it over, and as I got into my teens, I began purchasing bits of gear here and there. That stuff’s not cheap. I was afraid my parents were going to give me a hard time for wasting my money on some bone-headed hobby, so I kept it hidden for awhile.

It’s only by God’s grace that I didn’t break my neck or otherwise seriously hurt myself. I didn’t know what I was doing. At first I was so eager to try the stuff out that I’d climb a tree in my backyard while Mom and Dad were both at work. I’d tie the rope directly around the tree (which is terrible for your rope’s longevity), and then rappel down, climbing up again and again until I got too tired to keep doing it.

Mom and Dad eventually found out. If I wanted to hit bigger heights, I had to let them in on it. From trees I moved on to an old nearby antenna tower that wasn’t used anymore. I’d go through life eyeballing places that were easy to climb up and had a big, clear drop. I eventually rappelled down things like an elevator shaft in a building under construction, out of the ceiling of a gymnasium, my dorm room window at college, a few times over the stage of an auditorium during a performance, and a few nice, big cliffs. One time I even rappelled down a cliff IN a kayak. (That’s a whole separate post! Stay tuned…)

It was awesome. Sometimes it felt like something out of a SWAT Team movie, other times it felt like some kind of military special forces thing, but mostly it was just…fun! I loved going off big cliffs, giving a big kick off the wall, and hearing the rope making that “zzzzzzz” noise as it rushed through the hardware, lowering me safely to the ground as fast as I allowed it to. Other times it was a challenge to have precise control over the descent speed. (I almost smashed through a window once in college, but I was able to control the descent enough to avoid doing that. I’m not sure how I would’ve explained THAT one!)

It’s been forever since I did any rappelling. I still have all the gear in the basement, though. I made ziplines, pulley systems, all kinds of crazy stuff. Now my kids are starting to get interested in it. Anyway, I’ve got two ways to tie this story in to your journey of living a more impactful life for Christ.

The first has to do with fear. The absolute scariest part of a rappel is right at the beginning, the part where you make the transition from standing on your own two feet to placing your full weight and trust in the strength of the rope and harness. Especially if you’re new to rappelling, it’s very scary to stand with your heels hanging off the edge of a cliff and then lean backward. The more you do it though, the easier it becomes. You start out from small heights, you learn to trust the equipment, and you pay less attention to the audacity of what you’re doing. You become more at ease with what’s happening, and you’re able to move on to something bigger, because your capability and capacity to handle bigger situations grows.

The second goes back to when I first started rappelling. I wanted to keep this hobby a secret; I had to be careful who I let in on it. I wanted to do it so badly though, that I was willing to do it in secret and worry about the consequences later. If you’re looking to be used greatly for Christ’s kingdom, and you’ve been moving toward letting Him use you for that purpose, there will come a point at which you simply stop worrying, and decide that you’ll deal with the consequences as you go. When it comes to living for Christ, dream a dream so big that you have to be careful who you allow yourself to tell about it. Not only can He make it happen, but someday down the line, you can look back over your shoulder and see how much farther past your original goal He’s taken you.

What do I mean when I talk about a goal or being used greatly for God’s glory? You may not even have a clear picture, or a fully formed idea…you just know that there’s something you keep coming back to over and over. Watch this video; it’s less than 3 minutes, and it does a better job explaining that phenomenon than I can.

I Have To – Promotional Trailer from Christy Fay on Vimeo.

This week is Thanksgiving. You may be getting ready to see someone you don’t see often. For your version of a “beginner’s cliff” to rappel from, here’s my challenge to you: that little thing God’s been whispering in your ear…your “I have to”…tell someone about it. Whether you want to blurt it out for all to hear when you’re sitting around the table, or tell just one person when you’re alone with them and you have the opportunity, say it out loud to someone when you’re together this week. Use this video as a discussion starter if you think it will help. That’s what I did when I got the idea for this blog, which is the start of my “I have to.” I figured that if I told someone, and they didn’t hear about any progress on it, they might ask me about it later. Telling someone was my way of moving the idea outside my head, almost a way of holding myself accountable and setting things in motion.

A little fear is good. It helps keep you alert, focused, and it helps you learn what’s important and what’s not. Too much of it will hold you back and keep your feet from leaving the ground. Everyone gets scared sometimes, but it’s how to deal with it that makes the difference. Don’t let fear prevent you from taking the leap that God’s been whispering in your ear.

God’s invited you on an adventure. I don’t know how big your particular cliff is. He can bring you to the edge, but it’s up to you to hang your heels off the edge and lean out into the void. Trust the rope. Trust your gear. The first few steps are the scariest, but believe me, if God’s prodding you in a certain direction, it’s an invitation to be a part of something special. Take the first step this week by moving that idea outside of your head.

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Ask Me

It’s funny how much parenthood can teach you about Christ’s relationship with us. I’ve got three kiddos under 10, and it’s been fun to watch them develop and learn as they grow.

Of course, parenthood has its exhausting moments. I have to credit my wife with doing the heavy lifting. Anytime there’s a bad dream or an injury, they don’t come looking for me unless Mommy’s unavailable (and even then, sometimes they’ll just wait for her rather than come to me). I can have one sitting on each of my knees, be hugging the third, and have all of them crying, but all of them will want Mommy.

But anyway…my wife and I found ourselves repeating the same things many times as our kids were very young. “Eat what you have, then ask for more.” “Obey first, then ask questions.” “Slow obeying is disobeying.” Some day, when our kids get old enough to do impressions of us, these are the maxims that I’m sure they’ll use.

It’s funny, though, to watch kids get a little more slick as they grow. Sometimes they wanted something, but they didn’t want to come out and ask for it. Instead, they might just throw out an unprovoked comment. “I wish we could have a snack pretty soon.” “It would sure be fun to watch a show right now.” “If you asked me if I wanted more milk, I would say yes, because my glass is almost empty.” My wife and I thought this was kind of fun to see, but we also wanted them to learn that it was okay to ask questions. One of the common sayings we had was “So…do you have a question?” They caught on pretty quickly that if they wanted something, they couldn’t just “wish out loud” about it; they needed to ask us (and the word “please” had better be a part of that question). Sometimes the answer would be yes, other times it would be no, but their chances of success would be much higher if they actually asked.

Going back to what I said earlier about parenthood teaching you about Christ’s relationship with us…God wants us to ask Him, too. The most blatant example I can think of comes from Luke 18:39-43. A blind beggar heard that Jesus was passing by, so he started yelling to get Jesus’ attention. When bystanders started shushing him, he only got louder. Then Jesus had the blind man brought to Him. What Jesus asked next is a little bit mind-numbing. “What do you want me to do for you?”

What kind of a question is that?! The guy is BLIND! This wasn’t like being blind today, where you can receive an education or get a job despite being visually impaired. Back then it’s not like there were specialized accommodations like Braille signs and traffic signals that made noise when it’s safe to cross the street. Blind people back then couldn’t get work. They had to beg, and they relied on whatever they received. If nobody gave them anything, they didn’t have anything. Christ knew exactly what the guy wanted, but He wanted the beggar to ask for it. He wanted him to articulate it, to express it, to say it out loud. It was perfectly obvious that the beggar had faith in Christ, but without him articulating his request, his chances of getting what he wanted were much lower.

Without ego, without hesitation, without any kind of pretense, he told Christ exactly what he wanted. “I want to see!” Verse 42 makes it clear that this beggar’s faith worked in his favor. Christ healed him; he immediately received his sight, and everyone that witnessed it gave glory to God.

When we pray, we must ask with thankfulness and with faith. Ever since the temple curtain tore in two, we have direct access to God. We no longer have to go through a priest or some other intermediary. You can talk directlyto your savior.

What are you asking for when you pray? Are you asking for mighty and impossible things? I once heard a preacher say something to the effect of “we can boldly approach the creator of the universe, who waits with His hand cupped behind his ear to hear our requests. What do we ask? ‘Dear God, watch over the parakeet and water the grass.'”

I love the mental imagery that this same preacher goes on to convey. When you pray, ask God for things that are so big…so impossible, that when He hears you, God slides forward in his throne, elbows an angel, points at you, and says “did you hear THAT?!”

He’s waiting for you to ask Him. You’re invited to live a life of daring and greatness on His behalf. So…do you have a question?

A little motivation (I’m more interested in the audio than the video)…

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How Fast Can That Skateboard Go?

When I was in early elementary school, the only kids in my neighborhood that were anywhere near my age were girls. I got pretty sick of watching them play Barbies. That’s why it was so exciting when a guy named Mario moved into the neighborhood. He was a few grades ahead of me, but he was my first neighborhood buddy that was a guy. It was great to finally do guy stuff…we would go exploring in the woods, play street hockey, build forts, get muddy, you name it.

One day Mario had an idea. He had a skateboard that he decided to modify. You have to understand that today’s skateboards looked nothing like the popular skateboards of back then. Today’s models are lightweight to make it easier to get them off the ground. Back then, the bigger and sturdier, the better. If a mechanic from that era misplaced the creeper that he or she would use for sliding under a vehicle, they could’ve used a skateboard as a substitute without much of a problem.

Mario’s idea was to take this giant skateboard and nail a big piece of plywood on top. After he did, it was big enough for us both to sit on it at the same time and ride down a hill. I’m not sure how we came up with the name, but we called it “The Beta Mobile.” We didn’t really know why, but it sounded cool, so we went with it. To test it out we took it over to the hill in front of the house where I grew up. The modern-day street in front of that house has speed bumps (probably because of the stuff we did on that hill), but back then there weren’t any. The hill had two parts; the first one was long and had a gentler slope, while the second one was shorter, but dropped pretty quickly.

In classic little-boy fashion, we didn’t look for a smaller hill. We just climbed on and didn’t really give much thought to how to slow down if we needed to. I sat in the front, and he sat behind me, bobsled style. We shoved off, and away we went.

We built up speed down the first hill, and we stopped accelerating as the hill flattened out, but then we hit the second hill. We sped up to where it felt like we were going to lift off the ground. To a kid that was accustomed to getting roped into playing house, this was awesome! I was having fun until Mario had another idea. Off to the side there was a house whose owner had paved a little portion of her yard so she could park another vehicle off the street, but in order to keep rainwater from running into her yard, the part that bordered the lawn formed into a big ridge. To Mario, this ridge looked like a nice big jump to try to hit with the Beta Mobile.

“Hit that jump!” He yelled, leaning toward it.

“Noooooo!” I yelled back, leaning the other way.

The way it worked out, I guess I was sitting in the better spot for steering, because we stayed on the road and flew right past the jump. The Beta Mobile slowed down as the road started sloping upward again, and we came to a stop, satisfied that we would be able to do mega-cool things with the Beta Mobile.

As we walked back up to the top of the hill for another run, I forgot about the jump. We decided we’d try to go a little faster this time, but this time we switched places and I was in the back. Again we shoved off and started picking up speed.

We flew down the first hill, and as we started down the second one, I remembered the jump, remembered that we had switched places, and I had a terrible thought. It was too late, though. As we drew near the jump, I leaned away from it about as hard as I could, but it didn’t matter. Mario had the better leverage for steering, and he pointed us toward the jump. We hit it going nearly full speed.

What happened next was something straight out of a Calvin & Hobbes comic. The bodies of two grade-school boys and a gigantic piece of plywood with wheels went tumbling and flipping through the air, crashing onto the lawn. As we lay motionless, moaning on the grass, the front door to the house across the street opened up, and a man in his 80s stepped outside, applauding and shouting “yaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyy!”

That was the last time I got on the Beta Mobile with Mario.

As you look around for ways that you can do more with your time and energy to glorify God, you’re going to have the opportunity to partner with fellow believers. For small endeavors it probably won’t be such a big deal, but as you move on to bigger projects, be sure that you’re on the same page with your co-laborers. Talk about your vision for what you’re working on together. You might both have good intent, but if you’re “leaning in different directions,” it’s probably not going to work out the way you’re all envisioning.

Follow God’s prompting, but game it out ahead of time with your partner(s). If you don’t, you might end up in a spectacular wreck, sprawled out in a daze, but your audience might not be so enthusiastic as the one we had that day.

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When Whiplash is a Good Thing

This post is a follow-on to my previous one, which had to do with people that are barely hanging in there, just trying to survive. (https://daregreatlynow.com/2018/11/05/helps-coming/)

Disclaimer: I have to warn you that I like military movies. Sometimes when I’m watching them, I get pretty excited about them and go back and watch the action-packed scenes a few times because I want to get a good handle on what I’m seeing. By their nature, though, they’re violent and often come with some salty language. I’m including a couple of clips below to go along with the post; if you’re not up for all the craziness right now, you’ll probably want the first clip. If my narrative below is too confusing and you just want to see for yourself (and can live with the cursing and shooting), go with clip number two.

One of my all-time favorite “spiritual metaphor” movie scenes comes from a movie called “Act of Valor.” It didn’t set any box office records or anything, but one of the distinguishing characteristics of the film was that the main characters in the movie were portrayed by active duty Navy SEALs. The plot was fictional, but it was based on real-world missions SEALs have conducted.

I know it wasn’t a real mission, but it was still fun to see SEALs doing some of the stuff they do. During the movie a team of SEALs had been sent into some foreign country to rescue an abducted CIA operative. The SEALs got solid information about her location, and they were tasked with recovering her. Her captors were torturing and interrogating her to find out how much the CIA knew about them. Heavily injured, her body wasn’t able to endure much more, and her health was failing quickly.

We’ve all seen movies or heard stories about Navy SEALs, and sometimes the line between what they can and can’t do gets a little blurred. They’re phenomenal at short-duration engagements, but since they usually work in smaller teams, a sizable enemy force will have a good chance of overwhelming them over time. In the movie, the SEALs rescued the CIA operative from immediate danger, but a sizable enemy force was bearing down on them. The rescue team stole a pickup truck and loaded everyone in, taking off just as a number of pursuit vehicles arrived to chase them during a high-speed shootout.

The SEALs’ planned method of extraction was to link up with a SWCC team…essentially a heavily-armed armored speedboat…whose callsign was Whiplash. But they began the assault earlier than planned (before the boats were in position), they hadn’t counted on this level of opposition on the way out, and there was too much happening for the original plan to function as intended.

The SEALs’ driver took off down the road without having an exact idea where he was going. The guy in the passenger seat was trying to navigate and establish radio contact with the team leader, who, along with another SEAL, was running to meet up with the rest. In addition to the barely conscious CIA operative, a member of the team had been shot in the head during the raid and was alive, but unconscious. Another team member was trying to keep him alive and revive him. All the while there’s a guy or two in the bed of the pickup trying to shield the CIA operative and return enough fire to keep the bad guys from getting too close.

The situation just kept getting worse. First they blew through their primary rendezvous point, and the enemy was too close for them to safely pull over at the backup rendezvous point, so they sped past it, too. They even pulled out a surprise or two to give themselves a better chance, but it just wasn’t enough. With no choice, they sped toward their last option, but by this time they had still created almost no separation from an aggressive enemy.

They ran out of road and at high speed splashed the truck directly into a river. They had gone as far as they could and had held the enemy at bay as long as possible, but despite keeping cool heads and performing at a high level, they could not be expected to do any more without some outside intervention. They had accomplished bold, even extraordinary things, but now it looked hopeless; the team had no reasonable hope of making a coordinated last stand against such devastating odds.

Just as the enemy trucks slid to a stop and armed men took aim, Whiplash came roaring around the river bend with guns blazing. Enemy shooters had no choice but to dive for cover as their vehicles got shot full of holes. After pinning down the enemy, sailors plucked the Americans out of the water and into the safety of the boats. As the scene closed, the vessel carrying the rescued team and CIA operative sped off down the river, having accomplished their objective.

(This is the shorter, less crazy version, but might still have a choice word or two.)

(The clip below includes the full pursuit, and is a little rougher on the eyes and ears.)

Have you ever had a day that felt like that? Things started out according to plan, but once one thing went wrong, it got bad in a hurry. Through grit and perseverance you might have been able to keep things from completely falling to pieces for awhile, but eventually the situation caught up with you and degraded to the point where it just wasn’t going to get better without some outside help.

Maybe you were on the other side of things. Maybe you were Whiplash, an answer to somebody’s prayer. Because of you and the help you were able to provide, you helped somebody stave off complete disaster.

Even better, maybe you have the opportunity to be Whiplash to someone right now. You might know somebody that’s already crashed into the water and is looking down the river in desperate expectation, but they can’t see anyone yet. They may not even know what they’re looking for, but they’re looking for you.

It’s time to armor up. Don the armor of God and grab that sword of truth. You’ve got allies (or potential allies) pinned down deep behind enemy lines, and only bold action will pull them out. If you’ve got the opportunity and can take a few hits for the sake of pulling the heat off someone else, step into the line of fire. Be Whiplash to someone. They’re desperate for you to arrive in time, and you’re the best chance they’ve got.

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Help’s Coming

An Air Force Pararescueman during an exercise

More than normal, I feel like this post can be helpful or encouraging to people. So please, when you finish reading it, pass it along if you think you know someone that can benefit from it. Link to it on social media, forward the email, or text the link to someone that comes to mind.

In order for the Air Force to cultivate an aggressive attitude among its frontline warriors, those Airmen need to be confident that if something goes wrong during a mission (their aircraft gets shot down, they get separated while behind enemy lines, etc.), somebody from our side is tenaciously coming to find them, and is going to fight viciously to bring them back. Just in case our forces can’t get there right away, those people need to be trained how to survive, how to try to avoid capture, and what to do in case they do get caught.

The Air Force has two main answers to this. It has two entire career fields dedicated to this function. One group is a set of special forces medics sent into combat to locate, stabilize, and bring out our people that are in trouble (all while under fire, if need be). They can parachute or swim in, rappel down a cliff to retrieve someone dangling by a parachute, get them medically patched up well enough to move them, and link up with a way to get to safety. This group is called the PJs (short for Pararesecue Jumper), and during a real mission, they rarely travel without some heavily armed friends.

The second career field is the one I tried out for: the SERE Specialists. The acronym “SERE” (pronounced “seer”) stands for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape. Full-fledged SERE Specialists are responsible for conducting training for anyone that, due to their official duties, experiences a higher-than-normal risk of being isolated and/or captured by the enemy. This includes pretty much anyone that works onboard an Air Force aircraft, Air Force special forces, some specialized combat roles, and a mishmash of other personnel. This is the only career in the Air Force where brand new enlisted Airmen are trained as instructors teaching both officers and enlisted Air Force members right off the bat.

Fire building is a critical skill taught in SERE training

The SERE acronym itself covers the full range of living through a combat mishap and getting returned to friendly forces. “Survival” is the easiest one. If, for example, your aircraft crashes in the ocean and you drift to a deserted island, you need to figure out how to survive until you get rescued. “Evasion” gets trickier; now you need to survive and signal friendly forces while trying not to get caught by the enemy forces looking for you. “Resistance” refers to your actions after you’ve been caught by the enemy; you’re going to be interrogated and dispirited. This phase focuses on doing your best to avoid giving the enemy useful information while clinging to hope. Finally, “Escape” is the goal of most prisoners. During WWII, the more prisoners that escaped from their POW camps, the more enemy personnel had to go out looking for escapees or guard those camps, which meant those enemy troops left combat roles on the front lines.

It’s expensive for the Air Force to move people around to different assignments and locations. Someone in the Air Force noticed “Hey, there are a handful of jobs whose training courses have high failure rates. Instead of sending people directly from Basic to those schools, why don’t we have sort of a “try out” school at the same location as Basic Training, and if they pass that, then we send them to their school?”
That’s why, after Basic Training, I moved from the main part of Lackland Air Force Base (AFB) near San Antonio, Texas to a base annex nearby. The unit I joined was made up of five groups:

  • SERE trainees (this is the group I was a part of), 
  • Pararescue, or PJs, 
  • Combat Controllers (another type of special forces that can improvise a runway or landing zone where no official one exists; they’re air-traffic controllers with guns and face paint), 
  • Explosive Ordnance Disposal, or EOD (the bomb squad),
  • SOTs – Students Out of Training (someone that, for whatever reason, will not be continuing to the main training school of one of the previous four groups. The collective washout rate for the other four groups was so high that this group warranted its own organization while they awaited reclassification to a new job.)

For the SERE trainees, every aspect of being stationed here revolved around one of two purposes: developing the mental and physical toughness to endure hardship and seemingly overwhelming odds, and demonstrating proficiency in learning the skills taught to you. If SERE trainees passed this class, they move up to Fairchild AFB in Washington State, where they continued their training. Anyone who ultimately graduates as a SERE Specialist will have personally endured situations where they refused to give up, where they endured miserable conditions, and where at times all they could think about was finding shelter, firewood, food, or water. On top of that, they learned to be teachers responsible for the health and well-being of a group of students that were cold, wet, miserable, and hungry, trying to trek around in the Washington wilderness without being caught by a mock enemy.

It’s also very expensive for the Air Force to train aircrew and special operators. Once those individuals are trained and begin getting some combat experience under their belt, they become even more valuable. The point behind the Air Force sending so many of its aviators and special forces personnel through survival school is so that, if something goes wrong on a mission, they can keep going long enough for us to get them back and return them to performing well in their combat role. The training does not guarantee that they’ll live comfortably while isolated; it doesn’t even guarantee that they’ll be able to perform the same job once we get them back. It’s just meant to help them live through it, because Air Force leaders know that even if they recover people that can no longer perform their primary function, the training and experience wrapped up in them still makes them high-performing contributors in a different capacity.

You might be in that situation right now. Figuratively, or maybe even literally, you might be cold, dirty, wet, wounded, hungry, exhausted, and scared. All you’re trying to do is survive; to hang on long enough for things to get better. You can’t possibly think about embarking on some grand adventure for Christ right now. My answer to that is this: you may have already begun one.

Once you get back to being able to take a deep breath, the experience you’ve survived will become a part of who you are. The immediate danger and stress may be over at that point, but it will permanently impact how you go through life, affecting how you make decisions in the future. Better yet, God can use the current craziness to steer you into a new role that reaches others in ways that you didn’t see coming. That could be the part God’s after, even though things are rough right now. What you’re going through now is part of the training you have to endure, but you don’t yet know what your future role is going to be. Even though it’s difficult, and at times unbearable, but it’s something that you’ll lean on in the future.

In the meantime, I know it’s hard, but keep holding on. Someone’s coming for you. I don’t know what form it will take, but help is tenaciously coming for you, and will fight viciously to bring you back.

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Proud Papa

I have the honor and privilege of being the dad of three great kids. One of the most exciting times as a parent of young kids is when they’re learning to walk. A lot of times you can see it coming; they get really good at scooting around on the floor, but they start pulling themselves up and standing next to a couch or a chair on a more regular basis. It’s fun to watch as they start to “accidentally” learn. They pull themselves up, then get distracted as they find a toy sitting on the couch. They grab the toy with both hands and start chewing on it, forgetting that they had been relying on the couch for balance. Without realizing it, they’re standing unassisted, happily chewing on something.

Then they realize that they’re not holding onto anything. The reaction can be priceless. Sometimes they freak out and fall down right away, sometimes they grab onto the couch, and other times they simply squat down and sit on the floor.

Usually a few weeks after that they’re learning to walk. It’s so much fun to watch! It starts out with them again holding onto something and taking those first few tentative steps along a couch to reach a toy on the other end, for example. Before long they’re starting to do it without holding onto anything. They’re learning and becoming more capable without even realizing it.

It gets fun when you sit on a chair across the room and you encourage them to walk to you. I’ve learned, though, that if you lean back in your chair, it looks farther away to them, and they’ll look at you and decide it’s too far, so they’ll just drop to the floor and crawl to you rather than try to walk. Instead you sit on the very edge of your seat, with arms outstretched as far as you can reach toward them. When you appear that much closer, they happily leave the safety of that couch and take a few shaky steps toward you. Early in their walking experience you have to be very close, because they don’t have the ability to go all that far. As they get better at it, you can begin slowly withdrawing from them as they step toward you because you know they can handle the challenge, and you also know that they wouldn’t have bothered to try walking to you if they actually knew how far they’d have to end up walking.

It’s such a joyful experience to watch their drooly little faces as they keep stepping your way. Sometimes they realize what’s happening and lose focus, either out of fear or because they get distracted, and they fall to the floor. This happens a lot in those first few tries! They get better at it though, and soon you’re holding your breath as they get closer and closer, walking almost all the way across the room. You want to say to them “you’re doing it!” but you’re afraid to say it out loud because if they realize what’s happening, they might fall again. Sometimes they make it almost all the way to you and either get tired or just plain give up and squat down. I know that when I see them do that, the competitive drive in me makes me want to say “Oh, MAN! You almost had it! If only you’d have focused just a little bit longer!”

This whole experience must have been what Jesus felt when Peter jumped out of the boat and started walking on water to Him. Based off the fatherly perspective I just covered, I would imagine Jesus’s eyes welling up a little bit and having to bite his lower lip as one of His students grabbed the chance to shine. I imagine that as He watched Peter begin doing something nobody should have been able to do on their own, Jesus screamed on the inside of His head “You’re doing it!”

Of course Peter looked around at what was happening. He saw what the wind and the waves were doing, and got scared. He took his eye off Jesus and started sinking. As He cried out for help, Jesus grabbed his hand without hesitation. “You of little faith. Why did you doubt?” That’s what He said, but maybe He was thinking “Oh MAN! You almost had it! If only you’d have focused just a little bit longer!”

Can you imagine what Peter must have felt? The exhilaration of reflecting on what he had done. The disappointment of having almost done more.

In your life, if you are a Christian, you have the same power living within you. In this life you’re most likely not going to get the opportunity to walk on water, but you may be aware of a lesson that Christ has been teaching you lately. You have the capability, but maybe not the drive. Like the parent of a young child learning to walk, Jesus might be watching you and thinking “C’mon, I know you can do it. Try it again.”

Don’t be afraid. It’s time to give it another shot.