The Bible has this way of covering epic events in
just a few verses. One such story comes from 2 Samuel 23. The text is describing
some of King David’s “Mighty Men.” This section is essentially a hall of fame;
these are the bravest or fiercest warriors to serve King David. In just two
verses, the author describes the feat of a man named Shammah:
11 And after him was Shammah the son
of Agee the Hararite. The Philistines had gathered together into a troop where
there was a piece of ground full of lentils. So the people fled from the
Philistines. 12 But he stationed himself in the middle of the
field, defended it, and killed the Philistines. So the Lord brought about a great victory.
The text is light on details, but we can glean some
of the important points. In an environment of panic and fear, everyone started
running away. For all we know, Shammah initially ran away right along with
everyone else. What we know is that at some point he looked around and saw his
countrymen fleeing the enemy, and he decided he was in a position to do
something about it.
There’s so much that’s left out. Was he trying to
simply buy some time to give his comrades the opportunity to escape, or was he
committed to putting a stop to this terror, right here and right now? If he was
running away with everyone else, he probably clenched his fists as his sprint
slowed, then came to a stop. It doesn’t seem like there was anything special
about this particular place, but this was the point in Shammah’s life when he
decided to take a stand. Turning to face the Philistines, he may have thought
to himself “This is it. Enough is enough. It’s time to fight.”
Taking first one step, then another toward the enemy
army, his insolence was an affront to the Philistine warriors. First they sent
out one man, then another, to deal with this ingrate. He likely dealt with them
one at a time at first. As he struck them down, they sent pairs, then trios,
but he dispatched them all. Then they came in droves. We don’t know how it happened;
it doesn’t even say what kind of weapon(s) he had available, but considering
the feats of the other “Mighty Men,” the list is not an easy one to get your
name onto. By making this list, his feats of bravery, skill, and boldness put
him in famous company.
We’ve all got battles of our own. You might witness
some sort of injustice that you have the power to (legally) rectify. You may
have the means, connections, or resources to provide new opportunities where
they are desperately needed. Maybe right now all you have is vision and
passion. There are overwhelming odds everywhere, but the drive within you has
been building and building. When will it happen? At what point will you say “This
is it. Enough is enough. It’s time to act”?
It’s time to stop running and take a stand. The army on your heels is fearsome, but if God called you to action, don’t be discouraged. Turn and face it, take your first steps toward it, and watch God work. Station yourself in the middle of the field, defend it, and allow God the opportunity to bring about a great victory today.
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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.
I left for Air Force
Basic Training one December day in 2003. Young men and women from all over the
United States converged on San Antonio, Texas, to begin their Air Force
journey.
For those that aren’t
familiar with military life, the whole idea of Basic Training for any military
service is to take a collection of individuals with nothing in common and teach
them, well, the basics of life in that particular branch of service. People of
every race and economic background, political persuasion, from all 50 states,
Washington DC, and territories like Guam, Puerto Rico, and various other areas,
all need to learn how to cooperate and function as a team. The different
branches of the military vary in how they do it, but in the Air Force, all
enlisted members complete Basic Military Training (BMT) and then move on to
train for the particular job they’ll be doing. In the same group of basic
trainees, you might have someone that’s going to be an aircraft mechanic,
someone that’s going to be a door gunner on a helicopter, someone that’s going
to be a medic, someone that works in finance, and someone on the bomb squad.
Basic Military Training
is a good idea, and is necessary for military service, but it’s a terrible
experience for most. I hated it. The instructors are determined to make every
round peg fit into a square hole. If trainees/recruits refuse to conform or
play by the instructors’ rules, they don’t make it in the military. All men get
the same haircut; we all march in unison; even the name of our clothes–uniform–explains
the level of conformity to which we had to acclimate.
For the first few days,
before we got our haircuts and initial uniform issue, we looked about as
different as could be. After we got our haircuts and clothes, we all pretty
much looked the same and even had some difficulties telling each other apart.
Over time though, we learned to distinguish between fellow recruits that we
couldn’t tell apart before, and we discovered that different people had
different strengths. Some were good at leadership, others at academics. While
one group might excel at marching, they might be terrible at physical training
or shining boots. We learned that if we were to succeed as a team, those who
performed at a high level in a particular area needed to help teach those who
lagged behind.
In BMT we all worked
together to complete whatever tasks the instructors gave us. We didn’t always
see the point of a given task, but we knew that we had to do it or life would
become more miserable.
It’s a little different
in the body of Christ. We all bring something different to the table, but
Christ values each individual more than we can know. Christ followers didn’t go
through their own version of BMT, but they all have the shared experience of yielding
control of their lives to Him. It’s a wonderful experience to
“graduate” into becoming a Christian, but that’s when, like when we
finish BMT in the Air Force, we scatter and perform our different jobs. We all
have different strengths and weaknesses, and we’re free to use our strengths
for the glory of God’s kingdom.
In major military
conflicts, commanding generals/admirals must decide the best way to position
their forces and resources to accomplish their objectives. They can break tasks
down and assign them to specific units. The individual Soldiers, Sailors,
Airmen, and Marines in those units don’t have the whole picture available to
them, but they have to do their best to accomplish their designated tasks,
trusting that their senior officers have made the best decision.
Now imagine if the
General assigned tasks not to individual units, but to individual people. Like in the military, in
Christianity we don’t always know why we receive the order to accomplish a
certain task, but if we don’t do it, our Commanding Officer has to figure out a
different way to accomplish His objectives. In His matchless power and wisdom,
this shouldn’t be a problem, but there’s always a reason why His “Plan
A” was His first choice. When we choose not to accomplish our tasks, or
not to accomplish them fully, there’s some sort of fallout for the big picture.
We might not learn what it is on this side of Heaven, but I can’t imagine
there’s much benefit from telling the Creator of the Universe that your way is
better than His.
If that sounds like
something you’ve done before, that doesn’t mean it’s the end of the road for
your Christian walk. Resolve not to make that choice again. Easier said than
done, I know, but you can do it. God doesn’t tell you to do anything that He
won’t enable you to do. If it looked like an easy thing to accomplish, people
wouldn’t recognize that God had a hand in it. Everything will be in place by
the time you need it. I leave you with these words from Joshua 1:9, after Moses
died and Joshua, the new leader of the Israelites, had some enormous shoes to
fill:
“Have I not
commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be
dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
If you don’t have kids, having one (or several) changes just about every aspect of your life. When you don’t have kids, you might not even think about it, but life can be amazingly simple. I’m not taking a shot at people without kids; I’m saying that if you don’t have kids and you want to walk out of the house and go somewhere, all you need to do is put on your shoes and leave. Doing the same thing with young kids can turn into a wrestling match, a drawn-out battle of wills, or a frustrating game of hide-and-seek that results in one of you (parents included) wearing mismatched shoes and only one sock as you walk out the door.
Kids can simultaneously be the sweetest and most frustrating people in the world. When my son was 3, he had a bad habit of coming downstairs after we had laid him down. Most of the time it would happen before my wife and I went to bed; we’d hear something that didn’t quite sound right. We’d mute the TV or stop whatever we were doing and say “What is it?” Almost always, our little guy would sheepishly stand up from sitting on the bottom step and come walking toward us, trying to see what was on the TV. It wasn’t always at night though; sometimes it was in the early morning. I usually get up long before everyone else in the house so I can beat a lot of the traffic on my way to work. One morning I heard him coming down the stairs when he was still expected to have a few more hours of sleep to go. Exasperated because I didn’t want my sleep-deprived wife to hear him and wake up, I walked over to the stairs and asked him in a sharp tone “what are you doing?” At that age he had trouble pronouncing his “L” sounds and would have lots of pauses in his sentences. My little guy looked anxiously at me with a furrowed brow and nervously said “Umm, I just…wanted to tew you…to have a good…day…at work.”
Imagine how badly I wanted to melt right into the floor.
You can often tell what kind of environment kids spend their time in by listening to the things they say. We’ve told our kids many times that we love them no matter what. When they’re still a little too young to make total sense of everything, they start to say it back to you in their own little way: “Mom? Dad? Did you know that I love you even when you’re bad?”
Kids bring so many crazy moments to your life. I’ve received bloody noses from little elbows. They break stuff that you really didn’t want broken. They seem to know the difference between when you’re prepared and when you don’t have an extra diaper or outfit for them. They’re sick and have stuff oozing out of every hole in their heads for the first two years of their lives. Their “help” with something you’re doing actually makes it more difficult. I’ve been in a totally dark house after everyone’s bedtime, then went to open my bedroom door only to jump out of my skin when I saw a toddler standing on the other side of the door, holding a stuffed animal and staring up at me with big eyes.
They’re messy, expensive, and suck the energy out of your body. They make your hair gray (or thin). Why in the world would anyone ever CHOOSE to have children?
You can’t explain why, but after you’ve had them, you know you wouldn’t trade it for anything.
It’s the time they spend with you and the love they have for you. It’s the times you get down on the floor and they use you as a jungle gym. It’s the way they shriek “Daddyyyyyyyyy!” and come running to hug you when you come home from work. It’s the way they cling tightly to you when you wade into water that’s deeper than what they’re used to. After you’ve disciplined them and they come and just want you to hold them as they sit crying, broken, and sorry, you want to squeeze them back and wipe their tears away, sometimes blinking back tears of your own in the process.
When I hear people ask “Why would God create humans if He knew they would let Him down?”, these are the things that come to mind. Like children, we are deeply flawed and are prone to do things our Heavenly Father doesn’t want us to do. Again and again, we fail to meet the standards set before us. We are stubborn and take forever to learn the lesson that’s being taught to us, sometimes even intentionally.
At the same time though, we are the source of tremendous joy to Him. When His children want to spend time with Him and seek a deeper relationship with Him, it brings Him colossal happiness. We all mess up again and again, but when we come to Him, broken and sorry, He holds us gladly while blinking back tears of His own. He doesn’t need anything from us, but He’s thrilled when we pursue Him.
This is a difficult time of year for many people, and maybe that includes you. You’ve almost certainly heard this before, but God loves you. Just in case those words have lost their meaning, I’ll say it another way: God really likes you. You’re loved, and you’re loved hard.
There’s a battle going on out there. You may not think of it in those terms, but that’s what it is. Christ came to offer salvation to everyone. The enemy didn’t like that, so he’s doing everything he can to prevent people from hearing about or accepting that gift. God created you to be a part of that fight, but the enemy’s going to try everything he can to demoralize, distract, discourage, and deceive you.
You have it within you to do amazing things for God’s glory that you dare not even think possible. Let me tell you…it can be done. There’s going to come a time where He calls on you to do something you’re not comfortable doing. He can and will empower you to do things you can’t do on your own, and it will surprise you what He can do through you.
For now, just know that like a child who knows Mom or Dad truly has their best interests at heart, it all starts with being confident and secure in your Heavenly Father’s love for you.
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.
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.
