Personnel issues in the military can be funny things. The military is usually trying to either grow or shrink the number of troops it’s got in its ranks. Depending on the prevailing environment, a kick-you-out infraction may not always mean you get kicked out.
For example, I joined the Air Force in the 2003/2004 timeframe. We had heavy commitments in both Afghanistan and Iraq at the time. Even though it was an era of high patriotism in the nation (just a couple years after 9/11), the various branches of the military began having trouble recruiting enough folks to maintain troop levels.
During “shrink the force” environments, the brass makes it easy to kick people out. If you get a DUI during such a time, for example, you just gave your leadership everything it needs to discharge you. Instead of getting three strikes, you might only get one. On the flip side, when the military’s trying to keep everyone it has and is still losing numbers from casualties and natural attrition, you might get six or seven strikes and still be okay.
I forget this one guy’s first name, but I’ll call him Rodney. Rodney had a big mouth and a bad attitude. He had skills in what we were training for, but the guy just kept getting in trouble for one thing after another. I’m not sure which straw broke the camel’s back, but our leadership decided they’d rather try to reform him than lose him, so they sent him to corrective custody. Corrective custody is probably best described as being a combination of basic training and some kind of prison. For example, you could go to the bathroom, but you had to ask permission, and permission had to be granted in, like, half a dozen steps or something like that. If you didn’t do things according to the way you were instructed, you ain’t makin’ it to the latrine in time.
When Rodney came back from corrective custody, it was “yes, Sir,” “no, Sir,” and “please and thank you, Sir.”
Thinking back to those days, it might be a little extreme to say it this way, but there were some pretty worthless human beings in the military at the time. You hear stories about people that are problematic during times of peace, yet are absolute heroes under fire, and those are cool stories, but sometimes you’ve just got people that are fulltime sandbags and oxygen thieves. Rodney was on the shiny side of borderline, but it was good enough for leadership to say “let’s try to get him where he needs to be.”
Now imagine someone with a love so unfathomable, so bottomless, that He says “I’m willing to die for the benefit of all those sandbags and oxygen thieves.” Unbelievably, that same someone knows full well “yes, most of them will reject what I offer them,” but died on their behalf all the same! What kind of love is this?
This is the love that Jesus Christ, the one and only son of God, extends to all of us. All of us were born into a world of sin, separated from God and Heaven by our imperfection. The sinless Christ, both fully God and fully man, died on our behalf to bridge the gap we can’t cross on our own. He presented Himself as a sacrifice to God the Father, once and for all creating a pathway to the Lord’s presence for us sinners. That pathway runs through Jesus Christ alone, and He offers it to all of us, regardless of our “worthiness.” We’re all unworthy. Yet due to that matchless love, we’re all invited. Won’t you accept His invitation?