One day when my
youngest daughter was four, she asked Mommy if she could have a lollipop. It
was too late in the evening to let her have it though, so my wife told her she
could have one the next day. Sure enough, our little one remembered the next
day:
“Mom? Is it tomorrow?”
“Yes, today’s the
tomorrow we talked about yesterday.”
It’s an off-the-cuff,
but profound saying. “Today’s the tomorrow we talked about yesterday.” When you
think about it, each of us is the product of our past choices and experiences.
You are the person you are today because of the things you’ve gone through.
If you could go back
and change something somewhere along the line…erase a mistake…capitalize on the
knowledge you have now…you’d have a new set of experiences. You’d no longer be
the person you are.
You are the person God knew you’d be at this point. He can, and (if you let Him) He will use you to do great things for His kingdom. All the mistakes, all the missed opportunities, along with all the high points, milestones, and celebrations…they helped shape who you are right now. Because of who you are, with your placement and background, there’s something that only you are equipped to do for God’s glory.
In the same way, the
things you experience today will shape your tomorrow. This includes not only
the things that happen to you, but the situations you place yourself into. The
choices you make hold tremendous bearing over what will happen to your future.
Make sure you’re making good ones.
Tomorrow will soon be
here; will your future self be thankful for what you’re doing today?
The guy in the back with the dorky pose…don’t know him
The sun came out for
our second day on the whitewater. The rain and gloom had passed, and we were
all much more relaxed now that we had survived the first day of paddling. The
mood lifted once the gray skies, drizzle, and apprehension gave way to sunshine
and confidence.
As far as the water
level, this was a perfect scenario; it was an April weekend that followed a
large amount of rainfall in New York’s Adirondack Mountains, but the warmer
temperatures and rain helped melt a lot of the snow, which also ran into the
river. The result was a river so swollen with churning whitewater that even
many of the local guides had never seen it quite this big.
Our second day was a
little different from the first. This time we linked up with one of the local
outfits that knew the river pretty well, and we stuck close to them for a
collective “safety in numbers” advantage. Laura was still our raft’s captain,
and I was still paired with her to project the voice commands a bit further,
but we rotated some of the paddlers around between boats.
In the afternoon, the
local boat was in front of us, and then the next two rafts were ours. As we
came around a sharp bend in the river, all the color drained from our faces.
Spanning two thirds of the river was a gigantic standing wave that had a nasty
rip curl at the top. It was a freak river feature that could only occur when
extreme amounts of water shot through that section of the waterway. The guides
didn’t know it was there, and none of us out-of-towners expected to see
anything like it.
The local boat saw it
too late, and all they could do was try to paddle through it head-on. It was
too much for them; the boat got flipped right away and everybody got dumped in
the chilly water. The rest of us paddled for all we were worth to get to the safer
route. We safely made it past the wave, then surveyed the damage. Since we were
the first boat on the scene, we made for the biggest group of helmets bobbing
in the water. We started grabbing people by the life jackets and pulling them
aboard. The raft behind us picked up the guide, but we got everyone else. Our
kayakers started buzzing around the area picking up dropped paddles, disposable
waterproof cameras, and even somebody’s bottle of Coke.
We were very near the capsized raft at that point. I thought back to all the raft-flipping I’d done in the pool during the dull winter months. I must’ve flipped a capsized raft at least 50 times in the pool. All that training was perfect for a moment like this; if I couldn’t use that knowledge and experience now, what was the point of doing it at all? I wanted to go after it…
I actually put my foot
up on the rim of the raft to jump into the water. I turned back to tell Laura I
was about to go after the raft, but that’s when I realized the state of
complete disaster our own raft was in. It was pandemonium. Our raft was meant for
eight people, but we only put six of us in it at the start of the day. Now our
raft was bogged down with 14 people, only half of which had a paddle. Our raft
was a self-bailer, meaning it had holes in the bottom so water that splashed in
would drain out on its own. Instead of the normal inch or two of water on the
floor, now it was midway up our calves. We were still flying down the river,
but we were largely at the mercy of the current, headed towards God-only-knows
what kind of waves, whirlpools, or strainers, and nobody knew the plan to meet
up with the other rafts.
The people we just
picked up were understandably chattering away about what just happened. They loudly
thanked us for plucking them from the water, but all their excitement started
causing a major communication breakdown for our crew and all we wanted was for
them to stop talking! Laura’s tiny voice was yelling, trying to establish some
sense of order, but it wasn’t doing much to get through to the newcomers. I was
paired with her exactly for the purpose of echoing her commands loud enough for
everyone to hear. I wanted so badly to go after the flipped raft, but it
would’ve meant leaving them in an even more chaotic situation.
I turned my back on the
capsized raft and started echoing Laura’s commands in a voice loud enough for
everyone to hear. Our guests quieted down and our crewmembers in the front of
the raft, no longer distracted by excited yammering in their ears, were able to
hear us and start pointing us in the right direction. Everyone with a paddle
dug just about as hard as they could, and we sluggishly moved out of the main
current into the calmer waters near the riverbank. In the middle of it all, our
trip leader, Tim, paddled his kayak up to the flipped raft and jumped on. I was
pretty distracted with the situation in our raft, but the last I saw of him, he
was laying on the raft with a big grin, paddling hard and looking like he was
having the time of his life. (I know you’ll read this at some point, Tim…you
beat me to it!) Anyway, it took awhile, but we eventually gathered all three
rafts to reunite the guide and crew with their boat.
It was an adventure,
for sure. In the moment, it was absolutely crazy and scary, but even now, more
than 15 years later, I bet everyone on our trip remembers that portion of it. The
trip had so many fun details that I had to journal about the experience (which
is where I looked for a refresher)!
I can’t even tell you
how much time I spent practicing how to right a capsized raft while in the pool
at college. Most of it was done just for fun, but each time I did it, it helped
contribute to the overall muscle memory and cementing the automatic steps that
would need to occur when a raft actually flipped over on the river. What better
time to use this experience could there possibly be than this opportunity?
Here’s the crux of it
all though: just because you’ve focused so much time and effort into training
or preparing for a specific type of ministry or situation that you ignore
things that are “outside your lane” when God drops them in your path. To truly
be a player on God’s team, you need to be willing to do what needs to be done,
whatever that may be. Even if you haven’t prepared for a given scenario, He’ll
make sure you’re equipped with everything you need when He presents a new
challenge to you. The only thing you might be missing is a willing heart, and
that’s something only you have the power to control.
During my senior year
of college I went on a whitewater rafting/kayaking trip with a club at school.
It was April, and the following month was graduation, so it was sort of an
early celebration of finishing college.
At our pre-trip
meeting, our faculty adviser, Tim, told us that we’d have some non-students
joining us. Some were alumni from the club, others were people he knew from
other endeavors. There was one guy, Joshua John, that joined us for the trip,
but he didn’t really know anybody else other than Tim. I thought that was
probably kind of an uncomfortable situation for him, and I was one of the
club’s officers, so I made a mental note to go out of my way to make him feel
welcomed. Turns out he was into some extreme physical fitness workout routines.
He was a man of few words, but was definitely someone you’d want sitting in the
front seat of your whitewater raft, getting doused by big water while setting
the cadence for everyone else in the boat.
We had some crazy
experiences on that two-day trip, and I’ll cover one in the next post. We drove
to the Adirondacks in upstate New York, and went rafting on the Upper Hudson
River. When we left school, everything was sunny and warm and everyone was in
good spirits. Everybody started getting quiet as we arrived in the mountains to
find that it was raining and some spots still had a good deal of snow on the
ground. After some scouting around we set up camp in the rain and in the dark, split
up camp chores, and took care of whatever we needed to do, then headed off to
bed. Somewhere in here I made sure to track down Joshua John and told him we
were glad to have him along with us.
The next morning it was
still raining, but we hit the water anyway. The river was even higher than
normal during the spring thaw, and everyone was a little jumpy. We had two
rafts, and there’s usually a bit of competition among rafters when there are multiple
boats. It helps build camaraderie and teamwork, so the competitive spirit is
generally a good thing. The other raft was fun; they’d start spinning while
going through rapids, or in calm water the crew all stood up on the edge and
tried to run around the outside of the raft without falling into the water.
Good stuff like this helps make a trip more fun.
Run around the raft rim
The captain of the
other boat, Steve, was mischievous. He was out to get the two of us that were
co-captains of our boat, an alumnus named Laura and I. Laura was physically on
the shorter and smaller side. The other boat’s crew took it upon themselves to
sneak up behind us during calm water, grab Laura, and pull her into their boat,
essentially kidnapping one of the captains. It was funny, unless you were
Laura, who helplessly became a temporary hood ornament for the other raft.
Over the course of the
two days they tried sneaking up to try to get me too, but most of the time we
were able to either get away or fend them off. On the second day they snuck up
on us again and a couple of their goons jumped into our boat and grabbed me.
They tried throwing me over the side, into the river. They caught me off guard
and I knew they were too much for me, but I didn’t want to make it easy for
them. I resolved to hang on as long as I could before they overpowered and
dunked me.
While my jaw was clenched hard and my eyes were shut tight, there suddenly came a clamor from the front of my boat. Bodies got shoved out of the way as Joshua John jumped into the fray. He picked up one of the attackers and threw him straight down hard into the water. The other invaders bailed out of our boat and jumped back to their raft. As the first guy surfaced again, confused and gasping for air, he asked with wide eyes “what the heck was THAT?!” He looked up to see Joshua John standing in our raft, barely breathing hard. He resolutely said “I have to protect my captain.”
I’m glad I found him early in the trip to say hi!
Just remember that as you go through life, the way you interact with people affects how they interact with (or on behalf of) you and others. It’s not always going to be quite this dramatic, but are you positively impacting others enough to make a difference?
Three or four years ago
our family of five went to see my folks for Easter. It was the time of year
when the winter’s cold was gone and the kids could finally get some time
playing outside.
While we were all in
their backyard one day, I told my wife and kids about some of the places I used
to visit in the woods nearby when I was a kid. On the spur of the moment, we
all decided to take a trip into the forest to have a look for ourselves.
Our kiddos have always
enjoyed being in the woods, but most of the places we’ve taken them have had nice
wide trails that make it easy to get around. There were no trails here, so we
had to find our own way. Without really thinking too much about it, my plan was
to bring them into the woods through one section, then bring them down to see
some cool spots along the creek, and then start coming back up through a
different area.
We got down to the
creek, and I showed them an old well, then brought them to the spot where some
of us slid down a natural waterslide and built dams as kids. I had a childhood
friend whose dad loved golf; in order to work on his swing, he’d stand in his
yard and drive old golf balls into the forest. As a kid, friends and I would
come across some of these golf balls while playing in the woods; they were
always in the same general area, so he must’ve had a consistent swing. J Now, with my own family in tow, I told my kids to
keep an eye out for golf balls. Sure enough, we found at least one.
As we started heading
back, I took them along an easy route I followed when I was younger. It’s a
funny thing though, if you stay out of a forest for 10 or 15 years, you might
be surprised at how much it changes while you’re gone.
We crossed back over
the creek and started heading back up the hill. It started getting tricky,
though, because in our path were numerous thorn bushes I didn’t remember
running into before. We’d make some progress up the hill, only to run into a
spot that was too thick for us to pass, so we’d have to scoot sideways or even
come back down the hill some. There were spots where we could squeeze through,
but I had to step on a few thorny branches and hold back others with one hand
while my kiddos carefully passed through.
It’s not so bad when
you’re tall enough to see over the thorn bushes, but when you’re only about
three feet tall and Mom and Dad don’t seem to know where they’re going, it can
be scary and even overwhelming. My kids started getting worried, even coming to
the verge of tears, so I stopped being delicate with the thorns in order to
move us along faster. Instead of grabbing them with just a finger and thumb, I
pushed them aside and held them out of the way with the back of my hand so we
could make wider openings and move toward our goal a little quicker.
It was slow going, but
the kids hung in there and we finally made it out of the woods. As the panic
subsided, the kids noticed that one of my hands had a surprising amount of
blood on it. I didn’t have any bad cuts, but the thorns had scratched me enough
that it caused the blood to start flowing. It looked much worse than it actually
was, but my daughter was very concerned because of how much blood she saw. Through
her eyes, all she knew was that Daddy was bleeding so that the rest of them
could safely pass through the dangerous spots.
As we had approached
Easter that year, we had been talking more frequently about the suffering Jesus
endured aside from the cross. The beatings, the humiliation, the crown of
thorns, the sheer indignity, and all sorts of other often-forgotten things are still
part of the story. He was so weak from the beating and other types of suffering
that He couldn’t even carry the cross, as the condemned often did. My wife
voiced the connection, using our adventure as an object lesson. It’s like it
clicked for my oldest daughter. He took
my place. I escaped the suffering because someone else did it for me.
I don’t know where you
are in life, or if you consider yourself a spiritual person. None of that
changes the fact that Christ paid for the price of your admission into Heaven.
You can’t earn it, you can’t pay your own way, and you can’t pay Him back. The
only way to get into Heaven is to use the ticket He bought you. He bought
tickets for everyone, but only a small percentage of people take Him up on the
offer.
He’s holding out a
ticket for you, and He wants you to take it. Will you accept it?
When I was probably 6
or 7 years old, a married couple built a new house across the street from us.
They had moved in, but the house wasn’t totally finished yet. When you’re a
little boy, new houses in the neighborhood are fun because there’s a ton of mud
or dirt piles to play in.
One rainy day I was
playing outside in my yard. I had my raincoat and my big rain boots, so I was
all set. Our yard already had a lawn, so it didn’t really have many puddles.
Since the house across the street wasn’t landscaped yet, it had all kinds of
puddles and mud to go stomping through.
I knew the neighbors,
and they were nice, so I crossed the street and started splashing through the
grossest part of the yard. I don’t think the gutters were installed yet, so the
water ran right off the roof and into the yard, making for some thick, goopy
stomping. My plan was to go knock on the front door to say hi, but it was starting
to be a tough slog. The mud felt like it got stickier and sticker, sucking on
my boots as I tried to pull them up.
It got to the point
where I couldn’t pick my feet up anymore. The rain boots were already much
heavier and clunkier than the shoes I normally wore, and now it got even worse
with the mud’s suction. My boots were stuck in the mud, and I wasn’t going
anywhere.
I started to panic. I
tried shaking them loose, but that didn’t work (it probably made it worse). I
think I was afraid to pull my feet out of the boots and walk across the mud,
scared that my actual feet would get swallowed by the muck. Defeated and out of
ideas, I squatted down (afraid to sit, for fear of getting stuck) and started
to cry.
I don’t know how long
this went on, but soon the front door opened and Joyce, my neighbor, poked her head
out. With a look of worried concern, she saw me in my helpless and pitiful
situation, and right away got some shoes on, came close enough to grab me, and
lifted me right out of the mud.
Cherished readers, this
is the story of the gospel, plain and simple. I was in a mess that I couldn’t
escape on my own. The difference with the gospel is that we’re all born stuck
in the mess, we didn’t wander into it because we made a bad choice.
People have different
reactions to being stuck like this. Some choose to just wallow and enjoy the
mud as best they can. Others look at the situation and focus on it being a
futile, meaningless struggle. To each and every one of us, though, a hand is
extended, offering us a way out of the muck and mire. It’s not forced upon us;
it is merely offered. This hand, friends, is the hand of Jesus Christ.
If you’ve come to
realize that you’re stuck in the mud and would like a way out, I urge you to
look into what Christ did for you. He’s gently knocking on the door of your
heart. He’s not going to force the door open; He waits for you to open the
door. Won’t you consider letting Him in?
It’s better than being
stuck in the mire. What do you have to lose?
In the Air Force I
spent about four or five weeks preparing to pass a screening course for
survival instructor candidates. As the time drew near for us to move from
preparation to test time, the tone of training got more serious. Up until now
we had been building our bodies and learning skills, but there was plenty of
goofing off, too. The culmination of our time at Indoc was a nine-day course
that was split between rigorous assignments on base and in the barracks for the
first half, followed by a period of being out in the field for the second half.
On the last Friday
before the course began, it was tradition for instructors to run students through
“The Swamp.” The Swamp was a nasty section of Lackland Air Force Base that was
just what it sounds like. Making it through the event was not a prerequisite for
the course, but it was a way for students to begin making the transition from
head knowledge to experience. (It was also fun for the instructors to do.)
A large portion of Air
Force Basic Training was focused on professional appearance, making the uniform
look good, and establishing a proper demeanor for recruits now living in one of
the armed services. While that’s important and has its time and place,
preparing to be a survival instructor carried with it a totally different set
of objectives. The goal in a survival situation is to do just about whatever it
takes to survive and return to friendly territory. A survival instructor goes
through grueling circumstances so they better understand how to convey that
crucial information to the students they’ll later teach. The Swamp helped students further
overcome their reluctance to take actions they might not otherwise take.
Our outing started with
some laps up and down a steep hill while wearing heavy rucksacks. We then made
our way to the edge of the water. As we got near, we could smell the nasty,
stinky, stagnant swamp. It was muddy, had some gross stuff floating in it, and
we could only imagine what lived there.
We made our way to
where the instructor indicated, then set down our rucks. We weren’t dirty
enough yet, so he had us start low crawling through some of the muddiest channels.
Naturally, you try to keep your head out of the mud when doing something like
that, but that’s exactly what our instructor wanted to break us out of doing.
“C’mon, get some mud on your face!”
All of us got herded into an area on the bank of the water, where we started taking turns leading exercises in soaked, muddy uniforms and heavy, waterlogged boots. Pushups, crunches, flutter kicks, eight-count bodybuilders, all sorts of calisthenics made more difficult or tricky by our environment. During flutter kicks, while our soaked boots were up in the air, water would run out of our boots and down our legs. On another occasion I remember that the ground was so soft, while I was in the pushup position my hands sunk down past my elbows into the mud. I couldn’t even bend my elbows to do pushups anymore! We alternately laid on our backs, then on our stomachs, all of us covered in mud except for our necks and heads.
Finally the instructor flat out told us to get every inch
of ourselves covered in mud. Then, for his
idea of a fun photo-op (which I think is fun too, in retrospect), he had us
find some kind of plant to put somewhere on ourselves. By this time, you could hardly even distinguish
between the students.
It’s tough to see, but yours truly is the fifth from the left
After awhile, our
instructor called an end to the experience. We all headed back toward the bus.
Since we couldn’t just walk onto the bus in our current condition, though, we
had to get all the mud off. The stinky, dirty, nasty water that once seemed to
stink so badly now washed us clean. We walked waist-deep into the water, bent
down so the water was up to our neck, and in some cases even went all the way
under. Considering how clean we looked when we came up, you wouldn’t know the
water was so disgusting and swampy. It later took a few trips through the
washing machine for those uniforms to become free of the swamp stink, but they
eventually recovered.
This was a crazy
experience. It was challenging, certainly, but it was very valuable. All the
physical training we’d suffered through for weeks, or even months in some cases,
and now this situation, demonstrated something very interesting to all of us:
if we try pushing ourselves to the limit, we’ll arrive at our self-imposed
mental blocks much sooner than we reach our actual limits. Maybe it’s been
awhile since someone asked you: “Are you giving it everything you’ve got?”
Maybe nobody’s ever asked you the follow-on question: “Yeah, but, are you really giving it your all?”
It’s also valuable to
understand that when you’re confronted by difficult (or even miserable)
circumstances, it’s a lot more tolerable when you have others there with you. If
you’re headed toward something tough, link up with a few others so you can encourage
each other along the way. Alternatively, keep your eyes peeled for someone who’s
alone in the mud right now. It could be more encouraging than you’ll ever know
for them to see someone wading into the mess to come alongside them.
(To see other posts related to the survival instructor indoctrination course, click here.)
After Air Force Basic
Training, I moved on to become a candidate for survival instructor. Since there
was a high wash-out rate for that job field, we first had to complete a physically
demanding screening course.
Before we could even
begin the course, we had to spend a few weeks or even months building up our
physical stamina. After having just graduated Basic, most of the people that
arrived were very skinny and had not had any serious exercise. By the time people
graduated the course, they would need to do hundreds of pushups a day, be able
to run a few miles within a certain time limit, and be able to ruck four miles
with a 65-pound ruck sack on their back in under 60 minutes.
These things were all
possible, but our bodies needed time to build up to those capabilities. Our
instructors designed PT programs meant to work us up to those goals. As a way
of keeping tabs on who was deficient in which areas, we periodically had
performance checks…where we measured and recorded our performance in a task
(whether it be a timed run, number of repetitions done, etc.).
When we first started
timed runs or timed rucks, everybody went at their own speed because nobody
knew how their natural speed would play out over the distance in question. As
time went on though, and we learned a bit more, we started recognizing not only
our own abilities, but those of our teammates. Some people learned “okay,
I’m usually able to make the cutoff with a few minutes to spare, so maybe I don’t
need to push it quite so hard.” Others learned “that guy usually sets
a pretty good pace…if I can just keep up with him for most of the distance, I
can fall off near the end and still make it.”
The result was that
trainees would usually pair off or group up according to their ability. During
a run they would set the pace for each other, or during a ruck they’d be able
to talk and keep each other’s spirits up. Being together helped them draw
strength from one another and made them stronger than they would be on their
own.
It seemed, though, that
in every class you had someone who struggled very hard with certain things. Some
people were naturally good at running, others were good at push-ups. Some were
gifted at rucking long distances quickly, others were just born leaders. We had
a guy in our class, Bob, who wasn’t really good at any of those things.
During runs Bob would
always be last. He’d be near the end during ruck marches. His pushups were
okay, but his pull-ups were terrible. He was not a leader. He was a goofball
that would drag down the team’s average performance, and he didn’t seem too
bothered by it.
One day we did a timed
run. We had a one-mile dirt track, which made it nice because then we only had
to do a quarter of the laps that we’d normally do on a regulation track. I
don’t remember how many laps we had to do that day, but it was at least two or
three.
The results were
predictable. The regulars were first across the finish line, and the next few
guys finished in what was a pretty normal order. By the time everyone else had
finished and were all doubled over with our hands on our knees in the grass
near the finish line, Bob was still on the track, way behind everyone else.
Sometimes on runs, the
people who finished early would jog back to meet up with guys still trying to
cross the finish line, and go at their speed to encourage them along until the
end. I don’t remember everyone’s first names anymore; I’ll just call this guy
Jack. Jack looked down the track and asked “who’s going back for
Bob?” This was much further back than any time we’d gone back for someone
before.
Jack looked around at
everyone, and nobody seemed willing to go that far back to meet up with Bob.
Without another word, he took off running across the field to meet up with Bob.
After he took off he didn’t look back.
You can imagine the mood
among those still left at the finish line. A little bit of guilt, a little bit
of “but…it’s Bob.” It
didn’t take long though, before everyone else started running across the field,
too.
Now imagine you’re Bob.
You’re plodding along at your best pace, which never seems to be good enough.
Everyone else has left you in the dust, and you’re on your own. Even though
this is one of your personal best distances and times, you can’t even see
anybody anymore. But then here comes Jack, running over the hill and meeting up
with you to match your pace and maybe urge you on a bit. As soon as he comes
alongside you, a group of more than a half dozen other guys appears over the
same hill, coming back for you.
Sometimes you just need
to be willing to be the first one to step out. Jack didn’t know what would
happen, but he decided that he was going, with or without anyone else. His
resolve set everyone else in motion.
If you’re a
Christ-follower, there are going to be things in your life that you are not
going to want to do. There will be other times where you know there’s something
that you ought to do, but you really don’t want to. It could be something like
starting a new ministry from scratch because you’re the only one in a position
to do it. It might be visiting a shut-in to see how you can help them. Whatever
it is, nobody’s doing it, and you have the ability to do it.
After you step out, you
just might find that others follow your lead.
Imagine you’re lost in
a jungle, starving, scared, and dirty. Hunger is ever present, and food is all
you can think about. Then you see a lizard that you’re pretty confident you can
catch.
Right now your stomach
might turn a little bit, but if you’re in that situation you might start
drooling. What makes the difference?
Part of it is the fact
that you’re probably not desperate for food right now. Another part of it might
be how squeamish you are about being around little critters.
When I was attending
the screening course for Air Force Survival Instructors, the instructors wanted
to impress upon students that you can’t let discomfort come between you and the
actions you’ll need to take to survive. As a way of helping students get used
to that idea, we had a whole slew of terrariums that were filled with all kinds
of creepy crawlies. I don’t remember everything that was there, but there were
lizards, toads, spiders, bugs, mice, and snakes. We had the opportunity to “get
friendly” with them. We had to clean the containers they all lived in, so we
had to handle them and get accustomed to holding things we’d ordinarily shy
away from.
This guy had a Banana Ball Python around his neck
We even had Max, a
20-foot Python, which we needed to feed every few weeks.
Taking Max out for feeding time
Max getting ready for lunch
Some of us were more
creeped out than others when it came to these critters. Some people weren’t
bothered by most of them, but might have a problem with one or two of them. I
don’t know that there was anyone who was unfazed by everything, but it was all
done for the sake of meeting our discomfort, or even fear, head on.
You might find yourself in the middle of a situation where you’re creeped out by what you see around you. This might be your opportunity to get more comfortable with the idea of functioning well in the presence of something that gives you the willies.
Are you being held back because of your fear of something? It might be that forward progress can only happen after you face your fear. Fighting for your survival can be a messy business, and a lot of it comes down to how much discomfort you’re willing to accept. Are you willing to get uncomfortable?
After graduating Air
Force Basic Training, I began my tryout to become a survival instructor. The
Indoctrination course after Basic Training is just a screening course; if you
pass it, then you get to move on to take another one. While at “Indoc,” it’s
your job to demonstrate that you can handle mental and physical challenges and
that you’re determined to make it.
Life at Indoc was
physically demanding. Our instructors needed to build our skinny bodies into
something that could physically withstand punishment and grueling conditions. Physical
Training was a large part of every work day. Pushups became second nature to us
all. Calisthenics, weights, running, ruck marches…all intended to build us into
something stronger. At that time most members of the Air Force were required to
take a PT test once a year. Physical fitness was so important to our training
that we did a PT test once a week.
We had some strange
workouts. Sometimes we’d be in the woods cutting down trees and setting up
shelters. Once every few weeks we’d have a Combat Controller (one type of Air
Force special forces) come by and lead us on a run that took us through the
woods and the mud, over fences, through base housing, and anywhere else he felt
like going.
In order to reduce the
risk of injuries and to help prepare ourselves for physical activity, we spent
between 20 and 30 minutes at the start of each day stretching. Stretching warms
up your muscles and helps enable them to cope with strains, exertion, and
overextensions.
There were times when
we had a good idea of the upcoming workout. Sometimes we knew we had a run
coming up, so we’d perform stretches with a focus on that activity. Other times
we knew we’d be in for a long session of calisthenics, so we stretched nearly
every muscle we had. When you know the nature of the goal, in this case a
particular type of workout, it’s easier to take steps to prepare for meeting
that challenge.
The tricky part is when
you don’t know what the goal is. On occasion, our instructors didn’t tell us
what we were in for. They made sure we performed certain types of stretches,
but didn’t give us any clues other than that. We had to trust that the
instructors’ preparatory guidance would help set us up for whatever we had to
face next.
The workouts were often
grueling, but the part that took awhile to see was that successfully making it
through a difficult workout was part of the solution to overcoming subsequent
challenges we didn’t even know about at the time. At first all we knew was that
we were exhausted at the end of a workout session. The following day we’d show
up again, then leave exhausted after another workout. Each day we’d show up and
go through another session and leave exhausted, but over time we discovered we
could withstand more stress, we became stronger and more capable; we were able
to tolerate conditions we previously didn’t think we could withstand.
It’s exactly the same
thing when living a life for Christ. When we think of “living a life for
Christ,” we think of going out and doing amazing or improbable things, but the
truth is that some days we’re just trying to survive. We know people who have
either made it through intolerable conditions or are currently enduring miserable
circumstances. For them, each day is a fight just to make it through. At the
end of each day all they know is that they are completely exhausted and worn
out, and they don’t know how they’ll ever make it through another day, let
alone months (or possibly years) of the same conditions.
The things I learned at
Indoc have parallels in life. God is the only one that knows ahead of time what
the goal is and how He intends to use individuals to achieve it. If those
people knew at the start what they’d have to face, many of them would never believe
they could do it. At Indoc we stretched to prevent injuries; going on a run
through the woods without stretching is dangerous. It’s easy to twist an ankle.
If you stretch your ankle ahead of time, you might still twist it and it will
still hurt, but you’ll be able to continue the run without actually sustaining
an injury. God’s version of stretching a person sometimes means putting them in
experiences that prepare them for follow-on experiences. They hurt, but it
allows those people to make it through a subsequent challenge without breaking.
Since God is the only one who knows what your upcoming “workout” entails, He’s
the one that best knows how to “stretch” you ahead of time.
“But what about when
the stretching never seems to end?” Sounds like you’ve moved past the
stretching and into the actual workout. It’s important to remember that a muscle
doesn’t become stronger by doing a workout a single time. It takes repetition.
When you do the same workout repetitively, your muscles adapt. They grow; they
meet the challenge. Over weeks, over months, or even years, they prove they can
handle it, and so you have to “add more weight” to the workout in order to keep
growing. The hard workouts are exhausting and draining, and they make you ask “why?”
Looking back at what you were before it all started, aren’t you now stronger
and more capable? Are you now in a better position to face the next challenge?
Have you ever been
stretched spiritually, physically, mentally, and/or emotionally? Maybe it was
to increase your “range of motion,” capacity, or willingness. The
stretching and workouts cumulatively built you into someone that can handle
something more…something more difficult.
The next challenge is
on the way. Whatever it is, it’s going to look intimidating. Remember that God’s
been working you up to it, though, and that it’s not too much for you. Your
past experiences have prepared you to take it on and succeed; don’t be afraid
to accept the challenge.
