Author: Tim

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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.

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Leap of Faith

USMC Confidence Course

When I was in Air Force Basic Training, we spent about a week at a mock deployment location. Up until that point Basic had focused on learning rank, Air Force customs and courtesies, how to conduct yourselves as Airmen, how to wear the uniform, etc. The goal of this “Warrior Week” was to introduce trainees to some of the things they would be likely to encounter in a deployed environment. This is where trainees first use a gas mask, where they eat their first MRE (Meal, Ready to Eat), where they first fire an M-16, and the week generally serves as an introduction to a variety of other things that they might need to understand when deployed.

This week is also when trainees go through the Confidence Course. The Air Force cannot control the background, knowledge, or skills of its enlistees, but it can provide the same training and experiences to everyone that joins its ranks. The Confidence Course is intended to present trainees with obstacles that they have to somehow overcome. In the process it builds in each trainee a sense of confidence in having been able to accomplish each task, so each person feels able to take on more difficult tasks, which is good because the most difficult challenges are toward the end of the course. None of the individual obstacles are particularly difficult, but the odds are that every trainee is likely going to have to face something they’ve never done before.

One of the more memorable obstacles for me was one where you had to swing on a rope to get across a pool of water. This is no big deal and it’s actually kind of a fun thing to do, except for the fact that the rope is too short for you to grab while standing on the edge. The person that went before you stands on the far edge of the pool and swings the rope to you, but since it’s not going to make it all the way to you, there comes a point at which you have to jump to meet the rope. Also, if you don’t jump, the rope will swing back and forth, with a little less momentum each time. Your best opportunity is the first one.

Rope swing element at the US Air Force Academy’s Confidence Course

As you grow and mature in your relationship with Jesus, you find that this obstacle may be an example for you. It’s a wonderful and beautiful thing when someone accepts Jesus as their Savior, and that relationship needs to deepen and grow. There comes a point, however, where believers must use their talents, abilities, and resources for the glory of God’s kingdom, and to help others learn about how He offers them an eternal gift. Sometimes the tasks set before believers will seem impossible to accomplish on their own, but they need to remember that they are NOT doing it on their own.

It is possible for believers to kill their own opportunities by waiting. There’s often something that’s in short supply, usually money or time. “I’ll start my new ministry when the money’s in place.” “This is a very busy time in my life, I can’t start something new right now.” What a lot of people don’t realize is that God may be deliberately withholding the resources you need until you demonstrate to Him your commitment. Sure, He knows your heart, but knowing your heart is a lot different from witnessing your resolve. Like the rope swing, you need to trust that if God has challenged you to do something, the things you need are going to be there at the time you need them, but you’re not going to reach them if your feet don’t leave the ground.

Sometimes you have to jump before you can get a grip on the rope.

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Go Back to What You Were Taught

A couple of guys during lifeguard training

At age 15, I started lifeguard classes. The group of us lifeguard trainees had an instructor named Linda. Linda was our teacher for everything from lap swimming to academics, first aid and CPR to practicing hands-on rescue techniques in the pool. There was an enormous amount of material to learn, and she was a very hard instructor. During the course, she learned the weaknesses of all the students in the course, and she would ask us the questions she knew we’d have difficulty answering, both as individuals and as a group.

That was a very strange summer; one of the students was a pastor, and he had a pretty busy schedule. My family took a vacation outside the country for a few weeks, and I also attended a youth convention in Colorado. There were a few other scheduling conflicts too, if I recall correctly. As a result, our training schedule was pretty chaotic and wildly inconsistent. Whenever we convened for our first class in awhile, we had to review what we had learned up until that point. We had to practice the first aid and CPR skills once again. We had to get back in the pool and return to our habit of lap-swimming. All of those “first-in-a-long-time” classes provided opportunities for us to demonstrate how much we forgot or didn’t know.

During the reviews, and then during the regular classes, Linda would pose questions in ways that made you question what you thought you knew about the material. You’d go to blurt out an answer because you thought it was an easy question, but she asked it in a way that made you second-guess yourself. As time went on, though, the material became ingrained in our minds and in our muscle memory. We became confident in our knowledge and our actions, and we were able to face increasingly complex challenges.

Learning and practicing CPR

Linda was a hard instructor, yes, but if I had the choice to go back and do it differently, I would not. I believe that the lessons Linda taught saved lives, and I’m sure that people retained the skills she taught them very well because of the way she did it. I’ll write more about it in a later post, but almost 20 years after I first learned these skills from Linda, long after my certifications had expired, I found myself in a situation where someone’s life depended on me remembering what I learned in those courses. My most recent refresher classes were with a different instructor, but when I needed the knowledge the most, I didn’t think of my most recent refreshers, I thought back to Linda’s instruction. The teachings came flooding back to me, exactly when I needed them urgently, and it’s my belief that I thought of her teaching rather than others’ because of the fervor, the absolute intensity with which the knowledge was drilled into my head, which was a hallmark of Linda’s courses.

If you are a Christian, you have been filled with the Holy Spirit, and are now capable of doing things that you cannot accomplish on your own. You have been commissioned by God to do great things. You can have an impact on an international level if you let Him use you. But as you press on with, or as you begin, this journey, don’t forget the basics. Study God’s word with fervor. Learn from a trustworthy teacher. As you go through your Christian life, you will encounter things that are lies, that are deceptions, and that are downright dangerous. When you find yourself in those situations, your response will come from the training you’ve had and the instruction you’ve received. Reputable Bible teachers, wise and trusted Christian friends, preachers and authors will all have an influence on the way you think and the way you perceive things. In the course of doing great things, don’t neglect these disciplines. You have to remember though, that if you want the answers to be there when you need them most urgently, you have to put in the time up front.

If it’s not your regular practice, dare greatly by cracking open your Bible and by praying to God about what’s on your mind. You might need to get your spiritual house in order before you move on to amazing things.

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Fight the Need to Breathe

Learn to kayak in calm water before you hit the whitewater

The college I went to had a lot of programs and clubs that were geared toward adventure sports. The school’s gym had a pool, but the hallways that bordered it had windows so you could look in and see what was going on. A couple of nights during the week, I’d be walking through the gym for one reason or another and look through the windows to see a bunch of people kayaking around in the pool. During my junior year I finally wandered into the pool area during one of these sessions. The people in this club, called “Paddle Sports,” were whitewater kayak/raft enthusiasts.

I’d never kayaked before. It’s a little intimidating to see people practicing how to right a flipped kayak (while inside it), especially when that neoprene thing around their waist looks like it would make it difficult to get out if you really had to. I ended up walking into a pool session to check it out one evening, and the people seemed friendly enough. It wasn’t long before I was squeezing myself into a kayak and sliding off the deck into the pool.

For safety purposes, the first thing they had me practice was getting out of a flipped boat on my own. Until you get a feel for how a kayak handles, especially during a turn, it’s easy for the boat to flip over. Practicing this move first gives you confidence to start paddling around the pool and knowing that you can get yourself out of a jam if you flip over unexpectedly.

Once I was ready to move on to another skill, it was time to learn how to right a capsized kayak. This is where it got tricky, because not only do you have to coordinate a number of motor functions so they execute at the right time, but you also have to become comfortable enough with the process that you can suppress your survival instinct. Many people are able to lean far back during the maneuver to make it easier to roll on the long axis, and lots of beginners are able to figure out the right way to snap their hips to make the boat begin to roll, but what really takes a lot of getting used to is the idea that your head needs to be the last part of your body to come out of the water.

In order to make the roll work while you’re upside down, you position the paddle on the surface of the water by feel, you snap your hips while pulling against the paddle, and you lean back so your head nearly hits the stern during the roll. If you try to make your head come up first, it’s not going to work because the weight distribution and momentum just aren’t right. If you try it you might be able to gasp a quick breath, but you’re right back down again. When that happens you slowly move the paddle into position again, but the situation is more urgent now; that last gasp wasn’t a deep inhale. You start to focus on how badly you want to breathe, rather than the synchronization of the moves that needs to occur. You give it another shot, but if you lead with your head again, at best you might get another short gasp. If that happens, panic sets in and there’s much less of a chance that you can pull off the move on the third try. Part of the reason is that now there’s almost no focus on the technique; you only think about how you probably don’t have enough air to both give it another shot AND bail out if you fail.

Even with help from a teacher, this roll didn’t work because the guy led with his head

By then most people “pull their skirt” and slide out of the upside-down boat, happy to be in a pool rather than in the middle of some rapids somewhere. For most beginners, this experience of being panicked becomes crucial in understanding exactly why it’s so important to leave their head underwater until the end of the roll, and in helping to do something that feels completely unnatural: leaving your head underwater when all you want is air.

Living a life for Christ can be a lot like this. At times you have to fight against your own instincts and learn to prioritize your own needs lower than you otherwise would have. Sometimes the ability to do this only comes through failures or painful experience, but that experience helps you understand exactly why you need to do things differently. As time goes on and you intentionally spend time developing your relationship with Christ, you learn to act in ways that the world finds unnatural, but that you have come to understand as necessary for God’s glorification.

If you feel God pushing you a certain direction, but you’re avoiding it for no other reason than because it doesn’t seem like what a rational person would do, fight the need to breathe. It could lead you places you wouldn’t have expected.

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I Need Something More

Cleaning up the coast of Maine

After I finished college I went back home to live with my Mom and Dad in Pennsylvania. I had earned a Bachelor’s in Biology with an Environmental Emphasis, and I minored in Outdoor Recreation. The tough part was that I didn’t really know what to do with it. The events of 9/11 took place just a couple of weeks after I started my senior year of college; I couldn’t see myself moving into a career in forest/wildlife management or facilitating team-building on a ropes course after the world had changed so drastically, but I also didn’t want to run off and join the military. With no direction, I defaulted to moving back in with Mom and Dad.

I had no idea what the end result of that choice would be. I had no way of knowing what would eventually happen, but I ended up living there for about a year and a half before I left for the Air Force. To earn money, I worked construction for a local home builder. I learned a lot of stuff working that job, but when you’re single, live with your parents, and have a decent income coming in, it gives you some opportunity to explore some additional hobbies or try some different things out. During this time I paid back all of my college debt, volunteered to work with my church’s youth group, did a lot of kneeboarding on the river, bought a new (used) car, took up skydiving, and took trips to Maine and Australia.

Kneeboarding on the river

It was definitely unique in the sense that I had very little responsibility, but at the same time I was restless. There was no direction; nothing to throw my energy toward. I tried a variety of things to kind of see if any of them seemed like something I’d want to pursue further. I tried some stuff that I wanted to do, and it was fun, but it still felt like I was made for more. I needed something that was…bigger than just me.

As time went on, the idea of joining the Air Force grew on me. By that point I had at least experienced an introduction to rudimentary medical courses, skydiving, scuba diving, swift-water swimming, long-distance swimming, shooting, and generally spending a good amount of time in the great outdoors. I began gravitating toward the idea of joining an Air Force career field called Pararescue. These are Air Force special operators that are combat medics trained to enter enemy territory to locate, stabilize, and rescue downed aircrew. It seemed right up my alley!

Just knowing that they were a type of special forces within the military made me hesitate though, and I think I was probably afraid of the high failure rate. I opted for something a little less intense. I graduated college in May of 2002, and in May of 2003 I signed on the dotted line with the Air Force, agreeing to enter the career field of Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) Specialist.

In order to guarantee that I’d have a slot trying out for that job, the recruiter let me know that I’d have to delay my entry into service. I signed in May, but didn’t leave for Basic Training until that December. I still had about six months left of doing the same stuff I had been doing, but knowing that there was something bigger coming helped me to feel more settled. I had found a few ways to push my limits in the past, but joining the Air Force in this capacity was going to allow me to really open up the throttle and see how far I could go. As you’ll see later, I got plenty of opportunities to push my limits, and the parts that were really exciting were where I exceeded what I thought were my limits.

Many times we impose our own limits. We don’t know where they came from, but somehow we taught ourselves to stay away from those limits, because we might get hurt or exhausted trying to reach them. By putting them in the context of something that’s beyond ourselves, though, things are a little more attainable. Isn’t it funny how when presented with a challenge, many Biblical characters immediately provided excuses? When called to speak for God, Moses blamed his speech impediment. Jonah ran the other way because he didn’t want God to spare the Ninevites. Instead of being crowned Israel’s first king, Saul went and hid. Many times we’re the same way. Those guys were all imperfect, but they went on to do great things when enabled by God’s power.

It’s no different for you and I. We’re called to do great things for God’s glory, but if you look back on your life, you may be able to remember some of the reasons you’ve cited about why you wouldn’t be the right person for whatever your calling is/was. Not only are you intentionally limiting yourself, but you’re missing out on incomparable adventures. Saying ‘no’ to God doesn’t help His kingdom grow. On the other hand, think about how much God’s glory is put on display when some feeble, unqualified human instrument agrees to go where God sent them, only to experience improbable success. It’s there, waiting for you.

Don’t be intimidated by the hurdles you see, but don’t be afraid of success, either. Accept God’s invitation to step into something larger than you.

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Expect Opposition

Capture the Flag…

I used to help out with youth group at our church after I finished college. One night we were playing Capture the Flag. A sidewalk ran between the parking lot and the church. The way we played, the sidewalk served as the boundary between the two sides. Each team had a flag that they put deep in their own territory. To win, someone on your team had to get to the opponent’s flag, grab it, and make it back across the sidewalk. Get tagged by anyone, and you go to jail, even if you’re holding the flag.

It was fun to see the different strategies people used. Most of the time people would venture just over the line, and see how far they could get before someone chased them. Sometimes people would just saunter across and act like they were on the other team. Once in awhile everyone would bunch up and make a run for it, with the outer people protecting the people on the inside of the crowd.

I remember one time we had a pretty slow-moving game going. The only action was at the border, where people would act like they were about to take off running into enemy territory, without ever actually doing anything. I don’t even know how he got over there, but suddenly I noticed a guy on my team, Chris, snag the other team’s flag and start hauling back toward our side. He cut, he juked, and got past all but one person.

There was just one girl between Chris and the sidewalk. She was all that stood in the way of Chris sealing victory for our team. From where I stood, I certainly couldn’t make Chris run any faster. I noticed that the lone defender didn’t yet notice what was going on behind her, because she was busy making sure that I didn’t take off into her side.

There was only one thing to do. Since she posed a threat to Chris’s victory run, I decided to do my best to distract her. All she needed to do was put a finger on Chris before he got to the sidewalk, and it would be over for us. I had to do anything I could think of to prevent her from turning her attention on him.

It didn’t matter what gender she was. It didn’t matter what race she was. None of that superficial stuff was important. The only thing that mattered was that she had the power to threaten our victory, and she was quite capable of spoiling our win.

If you’re a Christian, you have an enemy that is willing to go to great lengths to prevent you from operating at full capacity. Not only is he foaming at the mouth with visceral hate for you, but he’s intelligent, cunning, and patient. This is the worst kind of enemy there is. If you are actively following God’s calling for your life, this enemy will do whatever is in his power to distract, harass, and demoralize you. DO NOT LET HIM STOP YOU. You’ve been called to something too great for you to be stopped, sidelined, or benched. Christ’s power – the power that lives in you – is infinitely greater than your enemy’s.

In the game of Capture the Flag, it’s worth pointing out who I did NOT care about. As Chris made his dash for triumph, there were plenty of other people on the opposing team, but most of them were either unable or unwilling to play a pivotal role at that point. It’s the same thing in Spiritual Warfare. If you’re pretty much a Christian for only an hour a week on Sunday mornings, let’s be honest, you don’t pose much of a threat to the enemy. On the other hand, if you’re out there telling people about Jesus, if you’re someone who helps minister to others, if you’re someone who tries to spur other Christians on, I can guarantee that the enemy sees you as a threat, and he will almost certainly expend resources to try to derail you somehow. Challenge yourself to answer the question “am I worth distracting?”

If you believe that becoming a Christian meant that your life would become easier, I’m sorry to burst your bubble. Don’t expect things to get easier in your Christian life; expect them to get harder! The thing is, though, that as you grow and mature in Christ…as He brings you through progressively more challenging assignments, you learn to trust Him. You have hope. You learn to recognize that the distractions will fade if you just…hold…fast. Whatever it is that’s in short supply – the strength, the financial resources, the endurance – it will be there when you need it. Just…hold…on.

And because I know someone will want closure…yes, we won the game. I ran into enemy territory, intentionally staying a little too close to the defender. I figured I’d lure her one way, and Chris would go the other way, but instead Chris kept me between him and her. Either way, he made it back to the border and we won the game. But don’t let that little story distract from the point I’m making. Through all the stuff of life that can choke out your efforts to glorify Christ and His kingdom…keep your eye on the prize. Just…hold…on.

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Are You a Carrier?

You might have a message to deliver, and you might not even know it

I lose sight of the sheer number of volunteers it takes to put on a church service. Childcare, Sunday School teachers, greeters, people handing out bulletins, people helping direct traffic in the parking lot, ushers…on and on and on. One time I was talking with a volunteer after church, and he mentioned that he was looking to move on to a different area of volunteering within the church. I asked him what he’d like to move into next, and he named one of our logistical roles, which is obviously a very important role on a busy Sunday morning.

I’m not sure why, but I started talking to him about moving into an area that felt sort of uncomfortable…maybe a little beyond what you feel comfortable doing. It’s like it just happened without any thought. There’s nothing wrong with the role he suggested, and in fact it’s a crucial need at our church. But for some reason, I just blurted this thought out.

He kind of shifted his weight and got a little fidgety. He even said “Oh, maaaaannnnnn.” He went on to explain that someone in church had recently approached him about filling another role; one that was just a bit beyond his comfort level. It turns out that my bringing up this idea was driving home a message that had already been delivered.

The God of the Old Testament is the same God we serve today. Instead of audibly speaking in a booming voice to people like Moses, today He whispers to us…to everyday people. A whisper can be easy to ignore, though, so sometimes He whispers to us a second time, or a third time. It might be a song you hear on the radio; it could be something that jumps out at you in a strange way while reading a book; it might even be a conversation you have with someone at church.

What’s really neat to think about is that, just in passing, you might be a part of God speaking to someone about a divine message that He’s in the middle of sending.

As far as the guy at church I was talking to…I don’t know what he decided. It’s not my job to try to convince him one way or the other. It turns out I’m just one of the messengers. I’m definitely curious, and I’ll probably follow up with him sometime, but I have to remember that there may be cases where I’m a messenger and I don’t even realize it, or that in some situations I won’t be able to learn the final outcome. It’s still exciting to be a part of, though.

I have a clip of a video that can illustrate this concept in a little bit of a different way. You’re gonna have to hang with me on this one, it’s from one of the X-Men movies. If you’re not familiar, some of the people in these movies have fantastic powers. In this scene, a woman named Raven has made up her mind to do something controversial. Her friend Charles, who is not physically with her at the time, desperately wants to stop her. Charles is telepathic, but he’s using a machine that can boost his telepathic abilities to communicate with her. As you watch this, imagine yourself as one of the people in the airport, who has no clue what’s going on. That can be you carrying a message that God is sending to a specific individual.

(Watch the first 60 seconds)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3cwAjmbZ5Y

Of course, it’s up to the individual what they do with the message. Sometimes they’ll choose to take it to heart, and other times they’ll do everything they can to ignore it.

If you ever have a moment like this, where you kind of say “I don’t know why I said that,” you may have just been part of sending a message that God wants someone to hear.

On the flip side, if you notice that you’re getting the same message from a few different areas in your life, it’s probably time to take that message to heart.

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When Opportunity Knocks

When I turned 14 my first job was at a Christian Conference Center in eastern Pennsylvania. My parents had worked there my whole life, and I was very familiar with the place, having even lived on the grounds for the first few years of my life. Most of the work I did was odd jobs: mowing lawns, weed whacking, setting up chairs for meetings, and generally the kind of stuff that you can have a 14-year-old do to help a place look nice or get set up for upcoming events. I worked there on weekends and sometimes on weekdays after school, but the busiest time of year was in the late spring and summer.

After I had been working there for a year or so, the recreation manager, Allen, approached me in the spring. He was planning ahead for the upcoming busy summer season, and he was trying to put together enough people to form a class of lifeguard trainees. The idea didn’t really appeal to me, though. I liked playing in the pool as a kid, but the idea of swimming laps and doing all kinds of training, and then sitting in a chair yelling at people to stop running wasn’t something I was interested in. At least with my current job I got to be out of the sun part of the time.

Allen mentioned the idea to me a few more times after that, but I kept turning him down. His final pitch was the most memorable. It was a day of sweaty manual labor. A road around the pool was getting some light posts installed along the perimeter. That meant somebody had to dig a trench between each pair of light posts in order to run a power cable to all of them. I’ll give you two guesses who that “somebody” was, but you’re only going to need one.

I had been swinging a pickaxe and scooping out dirt all morning, and it was hot and humid under the mid-afternoon sun. My shirt was drenched, and I was sore and tired. I had to take breaks more frequently, and sweat was constantly running down my face and getting in my eyes. Along came Allen. He had a little bit of a smirk on his face.

“You see what you’re doing?”

“Uh huh?”

He pointed to a lifeguard sitting at the edge of the pool with her feet in the water, twirling a whistle around two fingers while getting paid to work on her tan.

“You see what she’s doing?”

“Uh huh.”

“Wouldn’t you rather be doing that?”

He got me signed up for the class.

Sometimes you have to go looking for opportunities, and sometimes God plops them right in your path through someone like Allen. None of my reasons for avoiding the opportunity he presented were all that great; I just didn’t feel like doing it. I avoided the opportunity, but it just kept knocking.

You ever have an experience like that? In addition to the way you see how you might be suited for something, others may have some pretty valuable insight, too. If there’s someone in your life that keeps offering you the chance to be a part of a given ministry, but you’ve been turning them down, have you really stopped to ask yourself why? I’m guessing that it’s either because you don’t feel like that’s what you’re meant to do, or because you might feel like it’s a waste of your talents. If that person keeps singling you out, though, consider giving them a chance. They might see potential in you that you haven’t even thought about.

It could be the start of your ministry sweet spot.