Life on the Inside

Our son Jason called from Ft. Lewis, WA the other night to say that the next couple of weeks would be "the worst ever." Firing various weapons at the range in daylight and then in darkness, shackling vehicles and equipment to be air dropped, seizing an airfield by parachuting in under the cover of night with hundreds of other soldiers, and road marching 22 miles were a few of the things he mentioned NOT looking forward to. In other words, the very things that drew him into the military in the first place.

Jason's imagination was colored olive drab by the age of three, when he first belted out,"Old MacDonald had a farm, G.I., G.I. Joe!" Carrot sticks or french fries in his chubby fists never failed to battle it out, accompanied by sounds of "Pckoo, pckoo!" his best imitation of M-16 gun fire. By the time he started school, his favorite past time was stalking enemies in the woods behind our house with his number one comrade in arms, Alexander--both clad in oversized camouflage and armed with sticks. In high school JROTC, he worked his way up to the rank of battalion sergeant major before graduating and finally fulfilling his dream of becoming a real infantryman.

But now he's on the inside, and the jump boots have lost some of their luster, so to speak. The high adventure he dreamed about has turned into a reality of exhausting training and day-to-day tasks that are more often mundane than manly. He still really does love the parachuting, weapons-firing, and romping through the forest, but he's learned that being a soldier involves more than just the fun stuff. He sees the complete picture, now that he wears his own uniform instead of his dad's. Jason's collision with reality isn't so different than that of anyone else growing up and entering the adult world. From moms to teachers, and from businessmen and women to any professional or manual laborer out there, how many of us have stopped to shake our heads and lament, "This is not what I signed up for!"

The same not-knowing-what-we're-in-for thing happens when we finally grasp the significance of the cross and enter into the body of Christ. We may have resisted for years because we were too busy, too uninterested, or too turned off by Hollywood's unwavering stereotypic portrayal of simpleminded, judgmental, and hateful Christians on the screen, or by the hypocrisy of a church-going neighbor or co-worker. Maybe we didn't know what to think of God so we didn't think of Him at all. Whatever the case, when we entered in by faith, we found that the view from the inside is far different than that from the outside, and, unlike other experiences in life, far better than anything we could ever ask or imagine.

The Bible says "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him." He's given us a whole book of reasons to believe that He means what He says, and He's given us His church built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus Himself as the chief cornerstone. But we'll never know what we're missing until we enter in through faith.

Jason found out that life on the inside of the army is not exactly what he had dreamed about. The glory and the thrill are still there, but they tend to get lost in the daily grind. Likewise, the Christian life has its own thrill and glory, but unlike in the army, it is the little things that happen day in and day out that magnify this truth rather than cloud it. Just ask any insider.