The Training of a Soldier
The military has developed some definite ways to change ordinary civilians into soldiers.
People who only shoot at each other with paintball guns or play computer war-games are clueless, and so are the rest of us.
We don’t have any sense of what fighting in real combat is like.
But the people who train the raw recruits in boot camp do. Any wrong thinking about “the glory of war” that an enlisted man has quickly evaporates under the harsh glare of reality.
It turns out that real soldiers:
- Clean toilets.
- Neatly make their beds every morning.
- Iron and fold their own clothes.
- Learn to treat people in authority with respect.
- Cut up and peel tons of vegetables, while working for the base’s cooks.
- Polish every metal surface until it gleams.
All the chores mothers tried to make their children do while they were living at home, the military successfully drills into each man or woman within a few weeks.
But the newly enlisted soldier also:
- Carries a heavy pack on long marches.
- Endures heat, cold, hunger, bad weather and lack of sleep.
- Becomes skilled at cleaning and handling dangerous weapons safely.
- Faces their fear, fights it off and does what’s required.
Finally, soldiers learns to obey a senior officer’s orders promptly.
Like new recruits, believers undergo the Almighty’s training, to be shaped into the men and women He can use effectively.
In the Lord’s Boot Camp
When we decide to follow Jesus, it’s like enlisting. But the Holy Spirit’s day-to-day orders given to each believer are just as surprising as a new army recruit being put to work cleaning toilets.
The Holy Spirit often prompts us to do minor, uncomfortable acts of obedience that seem totally unimportant.
Are we willing to obey the Holy Spirit and do anything?
Will we:
- Apologize to people we’ve offended?
- Remain thankful to God during tough times?
- Forgive those who’ve injured us?
- Cheerfully clean up other people’s messes?
- Continue to praise God, even through our tears?
- Serve people, continuing to bless even those who are ungrateful and rude?
- Get criticized unjustly, but refuse to strike back?
Some of the things I’ve just listed are like the military forcing a raw recruit to peel potatoes or fold his underwear. It’s not what we signed up for. Yet it’s essential training for any Christian.
We also start to learn:
- To deny ourselves sinful pleasures.
- To make sacrifices.
- To choose God’s will over our own, even when it hurts.
The Holy Spirit runs an “individually tailored boot camp” for each Christian. He wants to make all believers more Christ-like. But like the military, we are also being shaped to fulfill different roles in the kingdom. The United States Air Force trains people to be pilots and navigators. Yet good airplane mechanics and supply personnel are just a critical to the unit’s overall success.
In the Bible, God puts His “heroes of the faith” into situations which grow them into the people they need to become.
So what task has the Holy Spirit given you to do today?
This image came from Pixabay.com.
