Part 1 : Chapter 3 : A Fighting Man

this blog is meant to be read in consecutive order, starting with the previous entries first.

I watch a lot of history and science television.

It is pretty much my entire diet of television watching. I have hours of details of tanks, and physics, and obscure battles shoved up into my brain. It's a wonder I remember anything else.

One night, a few months ago, there was a World War II documentary that dealt with a specific question: Why can some men go to war, do their duty, and when it's over, dust off their shoulders and move on, while others, even those in less intense combat situations, will be shaking wrecks for the rest of their lives?

I was cooking, or something, the TV is only on when I am eating or preparing dinner, so I wasn't paying close attention to the program's theories.

The question it posed, however, stuck with me.

I wondered what I would be like if I were in a war, what kind of man would I turn out to be?

Would I happily mow down my foes and then return home to kiss my wife and cut the lawn as if nothing had happened?

Would I raise a machine gun and close my eyes as I pulled the trigger, never to recover from the moment the weapon rattled in my hand?

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In warfare there are a myriad of reasons, I believe, a man could walk away from it--not unscathed--but not broken into small bits.

Faith in God, being what I think I would rely on most of all.

Belief that one is fighting ultimate evil or injustice, and is therefore just and right and doing "God's work"--so to speak--would be another.

Preparation is an important part. The bootcamp experience works to train a man to be a soldier and then sends him into the field.

What about the man, though, who has no training as a soldier? What about the innocent man who is walking on a beautiful beach, feeling the cool soil between his toes, and the next moment finds himself being strafed by an enemy aircraft? What about this man?

The question posed by the program, why do some men survive while others wither, applies to the "just a guy" walking on the beach.

...I wondered about myself.

I look back at the moment in my life when my surprise attack came. Looking at my shaking hands, I'm left with only one conclusion as to which man I am.

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The Bible makes it abundantly clear that we are in a battle.

I stood in the position of a pastor for a group of 200 tender-hearted, precious people.

In the church, the enemy's attack often aims at those in authority. A ministry is the only structure you can knock over by kicking off the top. Take a trip to Egypt and give the topmost block of a pyramid a shove. As it tumbles by, the blocks below stay steadily in place. (I am happy, and proud, to say the people working with me were solid and faithful and kept the work going, stepping in when I bowed out.)

As just a Christian we are assured we are in a war. *

I was not an innocent man on the beach. I was a soldier already.

* A spiritual one, not a literal one. This journal does not support or encourage militant action in the name of any religion, much less Christianity.

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The assault, though, wasn't a surprise for me. I knew it was coming.

When I was offered the position of pastor I prayed over it. The lives of the people I was to minister to were too precious for a glib, "Sure, why not?"

For a few days I mulled it over in my heart. Getting ready to leave the church one afternoon, God showed me something.

In my spirit, (SEE 1.2) I saw a wasteland where the church stood. Ruins. I saw a landscape of complete and utter devastation.

"Is the church going to be destroyed?" I said, shocked by the severity of the destruction I saw.

"This is what it will look like when your time is done here," He said.

He told me how long I would be there. Two years.

"That's not a long time for this all to end," I said.

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Two years later, the church did not crumble to the ground. It did not shut its doors.

There was, however, a devastation of sorts. I was among the first of an entire staff of dedicated and passionate people to leave. Lots of people left the church as I did, bruised, some crushed by its leadership.

I cannot, however, judge another man's work. The church still exists today. It still has a good attendance. I wish its leaders no ill will, nor their labor.

I have talked to many who do look back at what stands now as one would at ruins. As one would standing in front of the amazing columns of the Parthenon, imagining the splendor that must have been.

We don't have to imagine, we know the splendor that was, and our hearts ache for it. We ache also for those scattered, those injured in the fall. Families suffered, their children in turn, suffered and suffering still. Children of God dressed in the rags of what the world has to offer, the pale, thin comfort of sin or momentary pleasures that become one thing and one thing only--a prison.

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Shaken and stirred, I find myself now, seven years on.

I know others who have lost far more than I who walk in God's restoration and the fullness of His faithfulness.

I look at my own situation and shake my head, How little it took to take me out.

It is, of course, subjective. Each man's tent poles are different from the next.

Some acknowledge they are in a war, take the hits, and then pursue God's healing and promises.

Others lay on the battlefield, and rising, walk on, ears ringing, covered with wounds they are too shell-shocked to take to the Medic to heal.

What I realize now, is that part of the vision I had that day, or maybe all of it, was not the church or the work of that ministry.

It was me.

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God was faithful, on that day, when I chose to step into the work.

I had, at that time, two directions to go, and I felt He told me I could go either way.

He told me what my life would be like at the end if I chose the church path.

I went in knowing there would be destruction.

I went in trusting Him that He would be there when it was completed, regardless of what I passed through.

I am sure His grace and presence sustained me during the time I took hit after hit in ways I do not know, of which I am not aware.

I did not reach to access his grace though, not any measure of it.

I stumbled off into the distance.

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Now, I find myself in a house of my own construction, timber and wood stacked pitifully together. Gaping holes are in the roof, wind rushes in through the breaks in the walls. Again and again, it falls. Again, and again, I stack it back up.

I huddle in this hovel, though, on the floor of a great and mighty mansion. Seeking to protect myself, when marble floors lay below the thin dirt I've spread, when soaring colonnades and a real, solid, roof rise above the sticks I've placed over my head.

I have been a fool in the house of God! I feebly struggle to my feet, when the grace of the Creator of the Universe, the compassion of the precious Cross, and restoring presence of the Spirit stand to lift me, to put me back in place.

Faced with this I shudder and shake again, but not from the shell-shock. I quake in the presence of the goodness and faithfulness of God.

What a fool I truly am!

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What of the third man?

What of the man who was injured and shaken in the battle, but heals?

Does the man who crawled on the blackened soil of the battlefield, stunned from the explosions and torn by shrapnel refuse the stretcher he is offered? Should he wave the medics on, throwing away the moments in the operating room where his wounds are closed? Does he pass on the sunny corridors of the hospital where shattered bones are wrapped and healed?

I have crawled for too long.

I have begged off the healing hand of my Savior.

I will let Him lift me and carry me.

I will be the third man, wounded in battle, but restored by His Lord.

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1.2 Church Speak - I didn't like using them as a pastor, my kids were always bringing their friends, many who'd never been to church, and I don't like--I especially don't like--using them now. Church speak is like any other specialized language. Whether it be computer technicians, or graphic designers, or crafters, there are terms used that mean bupkis to everyone else. However, for the expediency of writing and posting this entry, I will forego explanation. As far as I know, only three people are looking in on this journal, and they are all familiar with the phrases I use. I may go back, at a later date and expound on what these things mean.