Christian Report August 2026

Standing Watch for One Another

At two in the morning, the coffee has gone cold and the minutes move slowly. Most of the people nearby are asleep. Nothing seems to be happening, which is usually the point. Watch duty is mostly waiting, and the waiting is the work, though nobody puts it that way in the manual.

There is something familiar in that for Christians. We are responsible for our own conduct be-fore God, yet Scripture keeps turning our eyes toward the per-son beside us, and it does this so consistently that I’ve started to wonder if the private, self-contained version of faith I was raised on was ever really biblical at all.

Paul told the elders from Ephesus, “Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock” (Acts 20:28). I usually notice the words “all the flock.” The phrase before it is easier to miss. Keep watch over yourselves.

A tired watchstander overlooks things. So does a Christian who has stopped praying, or grown bitter, or gotten too busy to notice what’s happening in someone else’s life. I’ve been both kinds of tired.

Most trouble does not announce itself. A friend starts declining invitations. Someone who used to call regularly goes quiet for a month, then two. A person at church smiles and says everything is fine and leaves the second the service ends, and you stand there in the parking lot wondering if you imagined the look on their face thirty seconds earlier.

None of that proves anything is wrong. Sometimes people are just tired, or need privacy, or are having an off week like everyone has off weeks. We can become intrusive if we treat every change in behavior as an emergency, and there’s a real cost to that kind of hovering, a way it can make someone feel watched rather than accompanied.

Still. It may be worth making the call.

Jesus kept noticing the person at the edge of the scene. Bartimaeus shouting be-side the road while the crowd told him to hush. The man at the pool of Bethesda, sick for thirty-eight years, some-one Jesus approached without a speech prepared. He asked a question instead.

“Do you want to get well?”

Strange question. Maybe uncomfortable. The man didn’t answer it directly — he explained why he’d never made it into the water in time, which isn’t really an answer at all, just a well-worn excuse he’d probably given a hundred times before.

Real conversations go like that. We ask how someone’s doing and get the practiced answer. We ask again, slower. There’s silence sometimes. The subject changes. Keeping watch doesn’t mean forcing a confession out of someone. Sometimes it just means leaving room.

I started noticing the phrase “one another” a few years back, reading through the New Testament with nothing in particular in mind. Bear with one another.

Forgive one another. Encourage one another. Carry one another’s burdens. It shows up so often that a private, solo-managed Christianity starts to look less like an option and more like a misreading.

Galatians 6:2 says to carry each other’s burdens. A few verses later Paul says each person should carry his own load. I’ve sat with that tension longer than I’d like to admit, and I don’t think it resolves cleanly. There are things no one else can carry for you such as your own repentance, your own decisions, the parts of your life only you can answer for. And there are weights that become too heavy alone, weights that were never meant to be carried alone, and telling the difference is harder than either verse makes it sound.

Practical help is usually ordinary. A meal left at the door. A ride to an appointment nobody wants to talk about afterward. Sitting in a waiting room with nothing useful to say, which turns out to be one of the harder things to do well.

Job’s friends sat with him seven days before speaking. That was probably the best thing they did. Once they opened their mouths to explain his suffering, they made it worse.

We feel pressure to find the right words. Usually there aren’t any, at least not ones that fix what’s broken. Presence has to be enough for a while, and that’s a hard thing to sit with if you’re the kind of person who wants to be useful.

There are moments, though, when silence isn’t enough. If someone talks about having no reason to live, or starts giving things away, or says they’re a burden to everyone around them, ask plainly whether they’re thinking about suicide. It will feel blunt. Ask anyway. Stay with them. Help make contact with a chaplain, a counselor, a doctor, emergency services if it comes to that. Don’t agree to keep it secret, no mat-ter how they ask.

That isn’t a failure of friendship.

We can also get so focused on helping others that we won’t admit when we’re the ones struggling. Most of us would rather carry someone else’s pack than let anyone near our own. We don’t want to look weak, or needy, or like the watch we were supposed to be standing has quietly become the thing we needed someone to stand for us.

Paul asked other believers to pray for him, more than once, and didn’t seem embarrassed about it.

Psalm 121 says the Lord neither slumbers nor sleeps. Those words sound different at 2 a.m. than they do at noon. The psalm doesn’t promise nothing painful will happen: it talks about danger, about long watches, about the sun striking by day and the moon by night. It just says God stays awake through all of it.

We don’t. We miss things, misread people, call too late or not at all. We can’t keep everyone safe, and pretending otherwise will wear a person down to nothing eventually. Grace covers that too, the missed calls, the wrong guesses, the times we said too little or too much. We’re not the ones who never sleep. We’re just the ones who try, imperfectly, to stay a little more awake than we’d otherwise be.

Someone comes to mind, usually, somewhere around here. Somebody who’s been quiet lately. A name that surfaces without much explanation attached to it.

That’s usually reason enough to pick up the phone.

Ashamed of the Gospel?

Would any of us who profess Christ dare to disagree with Paul? Of course not. We would adamantly claim that being “ashamed” of the Gospel is something that should/could/would never happen!

Are you sure about that? Let me share a story.

Decades ago, shortly after Dee and I got married, we were living in a small apartment and using a local laundromat. On one occasion it was just us and one other person using the machines. I had started carrying around a pocket sized New Testament and started silently reading it and Dee asked me if I would read out loud.

“In here, out loud?” I asked in a whisper. She started quoting the NT passage that contained Jesus’ words “If anyone is ashamed of Me...” (Luke 9:26). A bit stunned, I kept reading – out loud. I knew I wasn’t ashamed of Jesus, but Dee had made a point that struck my soul and changed my young spiritual walk forever.

Today, five decades later, and for some time now, the big question still crosses my mind when we share the gospel, or when we share our personal Christian testimonies. Hear me out.

First of all, when we share the message of the gospel, do we begin with “God’s wonderful plan” for our lives, or do we begin a normal conversation in some way de-signed to lead to the main issue the gospel addresses – our sin? I’ll just let that sit right there.

Secondly, let me share an observation made after reading, listening to, or watching video clips containing Christian testimonies. Not too long ago I read a Christianity Today article called 14 World Cup Stars Who Follow Jesus.

There was a reason for reading that article. I wanted to see or hear in those testimonies one or that might contain something like “There came a point in my life when I realized I was a sinner, repented of my sin and received Jesus as my Savior.”

You might be thinking that I was being picky. After all, they talked about the positive changes in their lives, wore articles of clothing with Christian mottos and Bible verses, and could be seen praying before matches. If you think that’s the case (that I’m picky) please know that I wasn’t being judgmental, I just wanted to hear something close to what the Apostle Paul called of first importance:

“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures. . .” (1 Cor 15:3)

After all, Jesus was born, came to this earth, died, and rose again to “save His people from their sins” (Matt 1:21)

What did I hear about what is of first importance? Crickets.

“What’s the big deal?” you ask. Well, I’m not sure it’s a big deal, but having listened to celebrity Christian testimonies of all sorts (movie stars, musicians, sports stars, etc.), I have to confess that the vast majority of them never talked about anything but lives that were changed for the better, fulfilled dreams, and true happiness in this life. It could be that the what is of first im-portance (the main thing) was, and is part of celebrity testimonies, but just not reported. After all, talking about the big “S” can be a turn off for a lot of folks.

So What?

What are we really saying here? Well, nothing difficult or profound. Only that when we share the message of the gospel and our personal testimonies don’t forget what’s of first importance.

Think about how excited you were when you finally got rid of that dead old beater of a used car and bought a brand-new model off of the showroom floor! Being raised to new life in Christ after being dead in trespasses and sin (Eph 2:1) is a far more wonderful experience than finally buying a new car. Let that excitement show!

Remember that all of the precious promises fulfilled in Christ were, and are the result of having realized the serious issue of sin, repenting, and being forgiven! Make sure that what was “of first importance” is part of your personal testimony.

SGM Daniel Cartwright, USA (Ret.) is a 28-year veteran of the US Army Special Forces and long-time member of Christian Military Fellowship. Dan is a Local Rep at Ft. Carson and the author of CMF’s Special Forces Devotional. He currently serves on the CMF Board of Directors.

Book Giveaway: Discipleship Training Objectives

Want to grow in your faith and become better equipped to help others follow Christ? Discipleship Training Objectives (“DTOs”) is a practical, Scripture-centered resource designed for personal devotions, one-on-one discipleship, or small-group study. Its 27 studies move from foundational subjects such as salvation, forgiveness, and the Holy Spirit to prayer, obedience, adversity, witnessing, humility, and spiritual multiplication. Rather than handing you fill-in-the-blank answers, it teaches you how to study God’s Word, think carefully about what it says, and apply it to daily life.

We would like to make a limited number of copies of DTOs available to our members at no cost. If you are interested in receiving a copy, or if you would like to lead a Bible study using the DTOs, please call (800) 798-7875 or email us at office@CMFHQ.org.

We would be glad to help you get started and trust this resource will encourage you and others as you study God’s Word and grow together in Christ.

A Humble Request

We’ve been thinking a lot lately about all the ways the Lord has carried this ministry — through prayer, through encouragement, through the gifts that show up right when we need them. Christian Military Fellowship exists because of that kind of provision, and because people like you have kept showing up for it.

Right now we’re behind. I’ll just say it plainly: we’re facing a budget shortfall, and we’d rather tell you that honestly than pretend otherwise.

If you’re able to give something extra this month, it would go directly toward keeping this ministry running — the resources we send out, the calls we answer, the families we sit with when they ask us to. Whatever you’re able to give, we’ll receive it with real gratitude, and we’ll be careful with it.

To those of you who give month after month, quietly, faithfully, we so thank you. You may never see most of what your giving makes possible, but we do, and we don’t take it lightly. A lot of this ministry runs on faithfulness nobody sees.

We also know this isn’t a good season for everyone’s budget. If giving isn’t possible right now, please don’t feel any pressure from us. What we’d ask instead is your prayer — that the Lord would provide what’s needed, and that He’d give us wisdom for how we steward what does come in.

Thank you for caring about this work, and for the men and women it serves.