Another Red Cross Letter

Already, in the first two weeks, two Red Cross letters have arrived announcing the imminent deaths of a soldier's father. I spent time with the most recent aggrieved recipient today and also prayed with some of the soldiers who were about to convoy with him to the airport.

There are now three soldiers that I will be counseling on a weekly basis through the end of the deployment. It is my honor and privilege to do so.

By God's grace, I am growing in many of the pastor/elder duties to which I've been called in the church: The regular visitation of groups of soldiers, the counseling of individuals, creating activities and Bible Studies to further communal bonds, offering crisis care. (I'm thankful for the opportunities I had to accompany elders on visits at Grace--I use some of those same skills now, by God's grace.)

The beauty of Presbyterianism (as opposed to the chaplaincy) is that this work is shared amongst the elders. It is the form of governance that heeds Moses' cry for co-laborers in his work from amongst the people. Here, I have no diaconate to tend to the material needs of the people in order to protect the session, which then helps tend to the spiritual/shepherding needs of the people in order to protect the pastor and the preaching/sacraments. This is not a complaint about my current role (which I love), but a renewed appreciation for the blessings of ministering in Christ's church.

Tomorrow, I start my series through Philippians. Next Friday, I start my "No BS BS (Bible Study)."

I am learning and growing by the day, by God's grace. And I hope the same for you too, friends. I will close with this precious encouragement offered by a civilian worker here on post that arrived in my email today:

Good morning, Brother,

 

I wanted to let you know that I am praying for you today as you get ready to preach tomorrow.  I am praying that the Lord fills you with His Spirit so that you speak His words.  That He uses you to reach the heart of each of your hearers and excites, overwhelms, invigorates, encourages, and convicts them with the gospel.  And that you are encouraged and strengthened as well.  "that according to the riches of his glory He may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your [heart] through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." (Ephesians 3:16-19)

 

Thank you for investing your gifts in serving God and all of us!

So We Suffer!

This was my retort to my activist friend as we continued our enjoyable discussions on the issue of gay marriage. This soldier, being thoughtful and fair-minded, has always pledged that he would fight just as hard to defend religious liberty as he has for gay marriage. He says this, in part, because he will overhear Christians speak in hushed tones about how Christians in America are being increasingly persecuted. That was when I blurted out "So we suffer."

As a citizen of the US, I have concerns for the future of liberty. I follow the policies of England and Canada, which increasingly encroach upon economic liberty, as well as the freedom and speech and religion, in order to avoid offense and enforce certain politically correct orthodoxies. I grieve for those societies, and I grieve for the future of liberty in general.

But as a citizen of another kingdom, I refuse to shed a tear. Since when was suffering a bad thing? It doesn't take a Christian to notice this reality. The Jew Victor Frankl knew unimaginable suffering in the Holocaust, but realized that no one need be a victim of suffering. One can suffer well. One can die well.

And suffering is not bad for the Church. In fact, it is a wonderful tonic. It humbles the Christian and forces Him to rely upon the sufficiency of Christ. It grants perspective to the Christian, helping him to focus upon the heavenly glory that awaits rather than the present travails. It grants assurance to the Christian, knowing that he humbly treads in the footsteps of his Lord and Savior. It glorifies Christ, who saving work is proclaimed and sustaining work revealed in the suffering believer.

In Risk is Right, Piper notes that security in this world is an illusion. The remarkable thing is we still devote a lifetime to achieve security. But the reality is, we have no idea what tomorrow will bring. As God tells us through James, our lives are but a mist. Tomorrow, it may be cancer or a car crash. We can try to insulate ourselves as much as we want, but we still stand naked and exposed within the sovereign hand of God.

Every day, every person walks by faith. Either that is faith in one's only ability to secure the future, or it is faith in God's ability to provide in accordance with His will. The security of the Christian is not material. It is knowing that nothing can separate him from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

It is about time for Christians to recover the concept of suffering from the clutches of our anesthetized society. Suffering is as precious as it is grievous. It is what happens to sinners in a broken world. It would be the defining trait of human existence (as some philosophers have believed), except that God sent His Suffering Servant to bear the weight of human sin and bind the wounds of suffering with eternal hope.

As long as Christians labor to avoid suffering, they weaken their walk with the Lord, shutter the doors of the church to their fellow sufferers, and waste the few days appointed to them on this earth.

My friends, we may suffer, but we are never victims. We are blood-bought, hope-filled sinners.

Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me--Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

May we be transformed, from grace to grace, unto the image of our Savior.

Restless Hearts

"Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you."--Augustine, Confessions

Prayer does not come naturally to the fallen heart. Our restless hearts are like the writer of Ecclesiastes, searching in vain through knowledge, pleasure and power for enduring meaning, but crying in the end "Meaningless!" They are like the younger prodigal son in Luke 15, who squanders the gifts before him in favor of pig slop, only to realize that his life is impoverished and is fading toward death. Our hearts chase after meaning in every created thing, only to grasp it and watch it slip as sand through their fingers. Family? Money? Entertainment? Stability? Education? Employment? Popularity? Power? Self-esteem? Moral causes? All sand castles waiting for the inevitable tide to wash them away and leave nothing in its wake.

Prayer does not come naturally to the fallen heart. How can the heart, full of deceit and corrupt in its inclinations desire the things of God? We are unable to straighten what is crooked. There is life and life to the full out there to be had, but instead, we follow the sin-tipped tongue of death as she guides us, with unsatisfying sleep and unfulfilling meal, to the grave.

Prayer does not come naturally to the fallen heart. How then can one again delight in He who can truly satisfy? David, amidst his own brokenness, prayed "Create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit with me. Cast me not away from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of my salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me." Paul writes that we should "work out our salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in us to will and work according to His good pleasure."

We must be born again. Our hearts must pass through the blood of the cross, midwived by the Holy Spirit, and presented to the Father, holy and acceptable in Christ. Then, the throne of judgment that scatters are selfish desires to the night becomes for us a throne of grace. There, we find peace. There, we relearn what it means to sit at the Father's feet in adoration of His holiness and grace. There, our restless hearts find rest.

It is still a difficult proposition to return to that throne day after day, knowing that, though the guilt of our sin is gone, its power remains. Our hearts still yearn for those things that do not satisfy. And we grow more famished and ask God "why?" But the Holy Spirit is putting to death the old man, and even the power of sin grows more diminished. And as He grants us a willing spirit and works in us to will and work according to God's good pleasure, we are prompted with a different "why" question:

Why won't you return to the foot of My throne in prayer and find satisfaction in Me?

Living the Projects to Leading the Projects

This is what I told one lower enlisted soldier yesterday after watching him give a presentation on his new line of work here as part of his NCOPD (NCO Professional Development).

This soldier grew up in the projects of Norfolk and would have been resigned to the wasted lives of many of his peers, but through the influence of a few key people and a sense of self-determination.

Now, he serves our country and serves it well. Yesterday, he was articulate and thorough in his presentation. I am sure he brings the same competency to his work. He is also good friends with another lower enlisted soldier from the boonies who used to be racist. Only in the church and in the Army can two people from such different backgrounds be forged into friends.

We don't have many lower enlisted soldiers in our unit, but the ones we do have are tremendous. They defy the stereotypes of the poorly educated soldier. Many of them have Bachelor's degrees. Some are pursuing their Master's. Those without the education still have the drive and practical wisdom needed to succeed. They bring credit to the uniform and to our country.

They are also usually the first to be put in harm's way. Please pray for them--particularly that they would find their security in the true God, who will not let a hair fall from their heads but by His sovereign and gracious appointment.

Some fun news: I was able to convince about eight of our soldiers to run the shadow Rock and Roll Half Marathon in Chicago, though most of them had not run for weeks, were experiencing their first week in an absurdly high altitude, and were barraged by work day and night. Oh, and most had never run a half marathon before. And they did it on a treadmill. I am proud of each of them.

I plan to start a 5 Half club and a 10 Half club to help motivate our soldiers to run these shadow marathons. I also took my first boxing class last night, along with another soldier in my unit. I felt like a dummy, but there's nowhere to go but up! If we do this for a month, we decided we'll by our own wrist tape, since we're currently using cloths that have been worn by hundreds of other wannabe boxers and smell so bad that you need to wash your hands in ammonia afterward.

In these fun, morale-building activities, I will work to remind my soldiers that "for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come."

And true godliness comes from that vital connection to the true God found only in Jesus Christ.

Family

One of my soldiers received a Red Cross message today that his father might not have long to live. If that is the case, please pray that this soldier would get home in time to be with his family. Odds are, a few more of these letters will be sent to soldiers over the course of this deployment. Death does not discriminate between intact families and those of the separated soldier. Please pray for peace and hope in Gospel during this time, for this family.

Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal on your arm. For love is strong as death. Many waters cannot quench love. Neither can the floods drown it. It flames with flashes of fire--the very flame of the LORD. (SoS 8:6-7)

Each soldier carries a picture like this upon his heart:

May each hard separation anticipate an even greater reunion! And may we each, through the grace of Jesus Christ, find our ultimate reunion within the fold of the Good Shepherd.

I Love My Job

I had an interesting conversation with a US civilian working for us here at the post. She is a Christian and grew up in a like-minded church in northern Virginia. She was homeschooled her whole life, and yearned to get married and have lots of children (a wonderful yearning!). Yet, in God's providence, after attending GMU, she got a job as an Army civilian and ended up here in Afghanistan. What a marked contrast--going from the precious comfort on her upbringing to the invigorating challenges of life in a war zone.

One of the points we kept coming around to in our conversation was how much richer life is during seasons and in places of great difficulty. It seems antithetical to how one would normally view suffering/hardship--i.e., as something to be escaped in favor of a more comfortable seclusion. Yet few things draw someone out of depression, anxiety, anger, etc. more than having to learn to deal with hardship. When one comes to the point of coping with suffering, rather than having the option of escape, they can begin to thrive.

I hate camping. I see it as an implicit desire to overturn the great Industrial Revolution. Why regress to a mode of living that we have progressed beyond, to our great comfort? I'd rather stay in a hotel.

But I love Malawi. And I love the chaplaincy. And when I'm pushed outside of my comfort zone, I love the pastorate. And that last part is key--it is when I am forced to deny myself that I find myself in the gracious grip of my God. And with each of these three things, by the grace of God, I often have no safety valve or eject button. I stop whining and get on with trusting the Lord. (By the way, that's why I also love my marriage. We don't flee hardship--we grow through it by God's grace.)

This is the legacy of many of my heroes. They suffer and they thrive. From Livingstone's "In this work I truly live; In this work I hope to die" to Machen's final words at his untimely death "Thankful for active obedience of Christ. No hope without it."

Now for practicalities. In light of my future receipt of an assistant, the responsibility of PAO (Public Affairs Officer) may be added to my purview (since we have two people and can handle more work).

Here are some of the things I'm working on:
1) Counseling 1-2 people a day. Conversing with a dozen or so. Greeting hundreds.
2) Starting next week, preaching through Philippians on Sunday mornings.
3) Likely starting a weekly Bible Study in the next week or two--either a "No BS BS" on hard issues of the faith, or studies on Christ in the Old Testament and what that means for us.
4) Establish comms (communication) with all of my soldiers in other locations, with the intention of making contact with each soldier about every three weeks.
5) Establish a daily prayer routine for my soldiers, with each soldier prayed for every couple of days.
6) Connect soldiers to chaplain resources and programs, like United Through Reading, which enables soldiers to read books to their kids on DVD and send the book/DVD home.
7) Re-launch the blog I created for my soldiers at sustainedbyforce.blogspot.com.
8) Help push awards through for soldiers who are overdue (like my funeral duty team).
9) Track all soldiers' birthdays and send email and CC the CDR so he can send an email.
10) Track movements of our soldiers off-post to find opportunities to visit our soldiers elsewhere.
11) Cultivate a running culture within the unit to make garner participation in "shadow" half-marathons and build unit morale.
12) Help plan a month of competitive team activities mid-deployment.
13) Gather with other chaplains to compare notes, pray, and learn.
14) Make sure pictures are taken at significant events, a unit newsletter is consistently published, and pictures/pieces of news are provided to our FRG (Family Readiness Group) back home for their newsletter and possible FB page. Also contribute chaplain column to both newsletters.
15) Advise the command on issues of morale, ethical decision making, and religious culture.
16) Hunt for soldiers who are struggling, love them, and get them the help they need.
17) Memorize Philippians and establish regular times of persistent prayer.
18) Keep regular contact with the Wifey and the boy.
19) Keep running half-marathons, take CrossFit and Insanity class, maybe learn some MMA/Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and possibly some boxing/kickboxing.
20) To glorify God and enjoy Him forever.