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Toward the end of World War II, President Harry Truman awarded U.S. Army medic Desmond Doss the Medal of Honor for risking his life seventy-five times in order to save the lives of his fellow soldiers. Under extremely heavy and relentless enemy fire, Doss dragged those men one at a time to safety. You may have seen his story in the Mel Gibson action film Hacksaw Ridge.
At the end of the movie, the real Desmond Doss in a documentary interview describes what kept him going back into the middle of the firefight for twelve hours straight in the midst of a dark and dangerous battlefield. He humbly states, “I was praying the whole time. I just kept praying, ‘Lord, please help me get one more.’” He asked for help seventy-five times, and God kept saying yes.
Was his unwavering faith that much bigger than yours and mine, or did he understand something more deeply about how God works in our lives? The answer to that question is what we will explore today.
Recently, we explored the concept of patience from a biblical perspective. We discovered how patience helps us have and practice faith. Last summer in an article called Splashdown we discussed how important it is to stay in faith during problems by keeping our focus on God. Both of those articles looked at things we can and should do when our faith is put to the test.
This discussion will turn things around to focus on what the Bible says God will do when we find ourselves under fire in the middle of one of life’s storms. First we need to take a brief, big picture view of our life as we exist in this world within the finite constraints of time.
We know from the Bible that God is eternal, that he is, always was, and always will be. God lives above and beyond time, He sees all of it in one panoramic temporal landscape. In the creation story of Genesis 1:1-5 it tells us that God created the heavens and the earth. In verse 5 it says – “God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.” That’s how God introduced the concept of days and time.
Thousands of years later in the Biblical timeline Peter tells us that – “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” That is why Christian theology believes that God created time. Our concept of life, rooted in time, is that there are three parts – the past, the present and the future. We are aware of our existence in the past and we assume our existence in the future, but we live only in the present. Ok, I know you know all of this but I’m holding up this familiar portrait of life for a reason.
As we live here on Earth moving through time, memories of our past never seem too far behind and our future always seems to be just beyond our expectations. God designed us that way. This perspective gets amplified when we encounter a crisis. During a crisis or serious injury, devastating disease or severe emotional distress, our perspective of life can get compressed. That’s also part of God’s design and He did it that way specifically for our benefit.
But many Christians don’t understand the why and how, causing us to miss the blessing that divine design holds for us. Failures and regrets cloud our view of the past, doubts and fears fill our view of the future. Panic is often the result in the present. Decisions we make under the stress of panic can be life changing. Extreme emotional distress can even cause serious disease. The medical diagnosis of takotsubo cardiomyopathy (also called broken heart syndrome) is caused by extreme stress and can lead to heart failure.
But there is another life changing event that can happen in the middle of a crisis. I’ve lived through the experience of a takotsubo cardiomyopathy. I recovered fully but I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. After a brief few seconds of panic, I experienced one of, if not the most profound blessing of my life. Even though I could barely move or breathe, I was overcome with a profound peace. I don’t think I have ever felt such a strong feeling of God being right there with me, almost like He was wrapped around me.
A common theme throughout the Bible teaches us that God often delivers His greatest blessing right in the middle of a crisis. Maybe that’s what Desmond Doss knew and felt that kept him going back into the fight. Here are just a couple of examples.
When fear and grief overcame the disciples after the Romans killed Christ on a cross, it was devastating. They hid in a room, consumed with disappointment, loss and guilt. Right in the middle of the lowest point in their lives, Jesus came in, bringing a blessing of peace.
The locked door didn’t slow Him down for a second. When Shadrack, Meshack and Abednego were thrown into the fiery hot furnace, God didn’t get them out. He stepped right into the middle of the flames with them. He delivered them from the problem, right in the middle of the problem.
From Joseph’s deliverance out of prison by way of a dream to Paul’s confident reassurance in the storm on the way to Rome, God repeatedly delivers blessings and peace into the middle of the problem. But that’s a hard thing to grab hold of when you’re the one in the middle of the crisis. Let me offer one possible way to make that better, one that has worked for me.
Above, I mentioned that God designed how we perceive living in time for our benefit. Here’s an explanation of how I have come to understand it. Our past is never far behind because God intends for us to look back at the times He brought us through and out of serious problems before. Our future seems to always turn out differently than we envisioned it, to one degree or another, in order to focus us on His sovereignty over our lives and keep us focused on eternity.
This perspective of the past and the future gets us a bit closer to seeing our lives the way God sees our lives. And the closer we get to seeing our lives and our selves the way God sees them, the easier it is to endure and persist in faith through the problems. So why is it so hard to think like that when we are grieving or in mortal fear of what’s about to happen next?
Think again about the Bible record of the fall. Remember what Adam and Eve did after they invited sin into the world? They cringed in fear, they hid, they tried to cover up in shame and then when God called them out they made excuses. Why? Well, back then there certainly wasn’t anyone else for them to learn that bad behavior from, so I figure it came naturally. I think it’s simply a part of our fallen human nature to panic and make mistakes when life hits the fan. The key is having God’s truth as our mindset before life hits the fan.
In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis describes the world in which we live as “enemy-occupied territory.” We work, play, eat, sleep, and live in the middle of a harsh spiritual battlefield. Our lifeboat when the “USS My Life” hits the iceberg is God’s truth. We need to know God’s truth, and we need to love God’s truth. (Psalm 119:97)
But here’s another piece to the puzzle: I have come to believe that 90+ percent of all emotional distress that we feel after the initial shock of the impact of hitting life’s icebergs is caused by one of two things. Either we have a lack of truth held deep in our heart or we lack the hope that we need in order to grab the truth and hang on to it.
Paul tells us that when we see things clearly, all the shadows of fear and doubt fall away and these three things remain: faith, hope and love. Hope is in the middle, delivering faith through God’s love.
Remember what David did after praying with all of his might for God to spare the illegitimate child he had with Bathsheba and then hearing that the child was dead? He cleaned himself up, went to church and worshiped God. He grabbed onto God’s truth in hope, and then faith delivered him out of grief. (Read: 2 Samuel 12:15-23) It’s a powerful lesson. If you are suffering with a problem, particularly grief of loss, don’t miss the blessing of God’s truth by failing to read how the “man after God’s own heart” dealt with his pain.
Let’s end this discussion on a positive note with a few thoughts about our anchor in faith, hope and God’s truth. Christ hung on the cross between two thieves. One thief tried to take control of the situation, made demands of Christ, thinking only of himself. The other thief somehow came to believe the truth and asked Christ for help, out of a hope based in that truth. All three men were in a crisis. The man on the right couldn’t see a way he would be with Christ in paradise but found faith and peace in the words Christ spoke to him.
None of the disciples could see a way that things could ever be made right, even after they had three years to learn the lesson. But their understanding, their peace and the way out of the ultimate crisis for all mankind, came through the miracle of the cross in the middle, and lives on today. If we base our hope in that truth, we can move through and out of a crisis in faith, knowing that when we can’t see a way is when God will make a way.
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Note: This article is part of the Choices collection of articles at Christan Soldier 21.org. Wondering what the “Choices” collection at CS21 is all about?
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