May
28
Written by:
Bob Flynn
5/28/2009 3:33 PM
“No foreign power or combination of foreign powers could by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us it must spring up from among us, it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die of suicide.” Abraham Lincoln
The First Rule of War
When Abraham Lincoln spoke these words I doubt that he could have conceived of a day when we would have a Department of Homeland Security. It is by design that America has NOT YET suffered another Twin Tower disaster! This success has been wrought at great cost!
“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.” Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
“The patriot who feels himself in the service of God, who acknowledges Him in all his ways, has the promise of Almighty direction, and will find His word in his greatest darkness, ‘a lantern to his feet and a lamp unto his paths.’ He will therefore seek to establish for his country in the eyes of the world, such a character as shall make her not unworthy of the name of a Christian nation.” Francis Scott Key (1779-1843)
“And God has given us the task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. This is the wonderful message he has given us to tell others.” (2 Corinthians 5:18-19 NLT)
Bob Flynn, President/CEO
We can ponder the significance of “A Warrior’s End” from many perspectives. There is the look on a mother’s face that can never be forgotten when she is told she will never hug her beloved son again; or the empty side of the bed that grieves the young wife’s heart; the empty chair at the dinner table where Daddy used to sit. If we can introduce each one of these young men and women to the Gospel before the crisis, their destination will be changed for an eternity! For those who are wounded of heart, there is one immutable fact: warriors only talk to warriors about warrior things.
“How well do you reflect the Gospel in the pain-filled eyes of a frightened seven-year-old girl whose grandparents you just helped kill? This is not merely a rhetorical question. I had to rip the answer from myself one day in 1965 as I stared into those terrible eyes at a devastated village in Vietnam. Moral dilemmas are by no means the private territory of men at war. However, wars do provide acute crises in moral and ethical decision-making” (LtCol Tom Hemingway, Serving God in the Jungles of War: Moral Dilemmas of Combat).
These are the kinds of wounds that never heal but cover over with scar tissue and if not healed by the Savior, become the future cancers that kill the soul.
Yet serving in the military provides an opportunity to live the Gospel and share it with those with whom one is surrounded. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not part of a believer’s life ─ it is his life. Therefore, to do anything less than share one’s faith with a lost and dying world would be to hide the light under a basket. The manner in which believers live and their stated convictions must be consistent. Anything less will have a negative impact on the believer’s credibility. The act of evangelism itself will carry with it risk with regard to promotion. Sharing one’s faith openly will bring criticism and scorn from those who most need its benefit. LtGen John Grinalds, USMC (Ret), Evangelism in Command —Paraphrase mine.
This is an impossible dream absent the fullness of the Holy Spirit in the warrior’s life. The battle is waged in the temporal battlefield, while at the same time there is battle in the heavenlies. Victory cannot be achieved lest both foes be vanquished. The same can be said for the wounds of the body and the wounds of the soul. Neither will heal unless both be salved.
In these stressful times we see the military continuously being made smaller while its role is being changed from war fighting to peace keeping. This has created increased deployment schedules, lengthier family separations, and greater stresses on the service member and family alike. If Christ is our vocation and not just a hobby then we should feel the call of a sovereign God upon our lives. Paul, writing from prison to the Philippians, shared the experience of having been buffeted by life, beaten by foes, forgotten by friends, and rejected by those he loved ─ all for the sake of the Gospel. This is the message to the Christian in the military today that settles whether or not military service is a calling from God. Left unconvinced the military believer misses the joy, contentment, and effectiveness also expressed by the Apostle Paul. COL Richard Kail, USA (Ret), What is Your Spiritual Climate? — paraphrase mine).
This is why there is a Christian Military Fellowship ─ the building of character that makes our great Christian nation unashamed. The Fellowship is here to help.