Retired Admiral William McCraven was a Navy SEAL for 36 years, last serving as commander of US Special Operations. He describes the SEAL version of basic training, and some of the life lessons it taught him, in a book he’s written called “Make Your Bed.” Here’s what he says about that simple lesson:
“Basic SEAL training is six months of long, tortuous runs in the soft sand, midnight swims in the cold water off San Diego, obstacles courses, unending calisthenics, days without sleep and always being cold, wet and miserable. It is six months of being constantly harassed by professionally trained warriors who seek to find the weak of mind and body and eliminate them from ever becoming a Navy SEAL. But, the training also seeks to find those students who can lead in an environment of constant stress, chaos, failure and hardships. To me basic SEAL training was a lifetime of challenges crammed into six months.
“Every morning, my instructors, who at the time were all Vietnam veterans, would show up in my barracks room and the first thing they would inspect was your bed. If you did it right, the corners would be square, the covers pulled tight, the pillow centered just under the headboard and the extra blanket folded neatly at the foot of the rack--that’s Navy talk for bed.
“It was a simple task--mundane at best. But every morning we were required to make our bed to perfection. It seemed a little ridiculous at the time, particularly in light of the fact that we were aspiring to be real warriors, tough battle -hardened SEALs, but the wisdom of this simple act has been proved to me many times over.
“If you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another. By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little things in life matter. If you can’t do the little things right, you will never do the big things right. And if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made--that you made--and a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better.
“If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.”
You may have heard the saying, “Sow a thought, reap an act. Sow an act, reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap a character.” There’s a natural progression from our thought life to our behavior, to the habits we form as a result, which in turn become our character. And that quality of character determines our destiny. As Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday.”
Character is the sum of our moral qualities, developed intentionally, one decision at a time, even down to the level of making our bed in the morning. And as Christians, our character matters greatly, since it reflects the integrity of our discipleship and our faithfulness to God.
The Bible speaks of this in very clear, practical terms: (read Galatians 6:7-9).
During the spring planting season, farmers, gardeners and others sow various seeds in anticipation of their results, whether in the form of crops or beautiful landscaping--and everyone knows that the kind of seeds we plant will determine what will grow. If we plant sunflower seeds, we’ll get sunflowers. (A man in Wisconsin whose wife’s favorite flowers were sunflowers, after her death planted a 4.5 mile stretch along a highway in her memory--400 acres of sunflowers, a breath-taking sight. He then sold the seeds and donated profits to hospitals and cancer research. That’s a perfect example of planting good seeds, with good results.)
But it’s also true that bad seeds will produce bad outcomes. Wrong choices and decisions will bring misery and remorse. Ask any addict or inmate, or pregnant teenager, or lonely millionaire. I think it’s very true, as someone has said, that we’re punished by sin more than for sin, in this life. Sins bears the seeds of destruction within itself.
Paul begins this passage, “Don’t be deceived. God cannot be mocked.” The laws of the moral and spiritual order are just as real and consequential as the laws of physics, such as gravity. We continue to see tragic stories of people falling off cliffs while trying to take dramatic selfies. The laws of physics demand our respect.
In the same way, there are also laws of the moral order for us to know and abide by. E. Stanley Jones, the great missionary to India, spoke of either living in harmony with life as God designed it, or paying the price of defying his intended order: “The moral laws of the Universe are deeply embedded in the constitution of things. We do not break them--we break ourselves upon them.”
A true story illustrates this dramatically: A pastor was counseling a married woman in his congregation who was attracted to another man and was tempted to begin an affair with him. Her pastor warned her, “The Universe is against you if you do this. You’re going against the grain of the created order as God intended it, and I can only warn you that it will end badly.” She disregarded his counsel, however, and learned that truth the hard way: she contracted a venereal disease from sleeping with that man and passed it on to her husband, ultimately destroying their marriage and seriously harming their family. We defy God’s moral order at our peril.
“Don’t be deceived. God cannot be mocked. We will all reap what we sow. Those who sow to please their sinful nature, from that nature will sow destruction.” Paul begins with that dire warning. Bad decisions will have destructive consequences.
But there’s also a hopeful alternative: “Those who sow to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.” Good decisions will have positive, life-giving outcomes. If we plant a garden, we’ll harvest nutritious vegetables.
We can either sow bad seeds to please the flesh and reap destruction, or positive seeds that will please the Spirit and bring new life. And one of the great challenges in our discipleship is to make those important choices wisely, in the sight of God. That means whether we think anyone else is watching, or not. Because ultimately it’s always between us and God. “Character is who you are when no one is watching” (John Wooden).
A number of years ago, a national conference for Youth Directors was held at a major hotel in the Midwest. Youth pastors by the hundreds flooded into that hotel and took nearly every room. During the conference some of its leaders were witnessing to the hotel manager, who seemed impressed by his Christian guests and was receptive to the Gospel. But by the conclusion of the conference they sensed a change in his attitude, and as they questioned him about that he told them why. He said that out of curiosity he had checked how many of the guests had used the adult movie channels, and discovered that they had broken the previous record for any other convention in the history of the hotel. So, in his eyes, they were nothing more than hypocrites. (A Christian professor of sociology at the University of Virginia interviewed the hotel managers after hearing that anecdote, and they confirmed its veracity.)
If you’re like me, that story makes your ears burn. But it’s especially those secret sins, hidden behind our carefully groomed public persona, that are so destructive. In fact, sin and the devil’s work thrive in darkness.
The Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wilde was a brilliant, privileged intellectual who presented a very sophisticated image in public, but whose private life was grossly hedonistic and self-destructive. He was eventually arrested and imprisoned for moral indecency, dying miserable and alone, in poverty, at age 46.
Wilde wrote something of an autobiographical novel called “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” It was the story of a handsome young artist who had his portrait painted while listening to a friend of the painter talking about his philosophy of seeking pleasure wherever he could find it. After hearing this, Dorian Gray made a deal with the devil that he would remain young and good-looking, and that the painting would age instead. His wish was granted, and he lived a life of sensual self-indulgence, never aging in his appearance, while instead the painting became increasingly grotesque, showing all the signs of his licentiousness. Finally, he became so repulsed by that image of his soul that he took a knife and cut into it. A servant heard screams and came running, finding him stabbed to death, and the portrait restored to its original beauty. That’s a vivid depiction of how our secret sins can destroy us in the end, just as they did for Oscar Wilde himself.
Even small decisions can make a big difference when they become good habits that build and strengthen our character. For example, the benefit of learning good manners as a child is that they’ll become second nature, and will serve us well for the rest of our lives, without us even having to think about them as adults.
The season of Lent can be a perfect opportunity to pay more attention to our spiritual habits, and make course corrections when necessary. A few years ago I realized how addicted I’d become to reading headlines from the news apps on my phone, several times a day. Beyond the addictive nature of that habit, I was also aware of how toxic it was to my inner peace, and how that anxiety distracted me from trusting God. I decided to fast from that habit, to the extent of only allowing myself to check headlines twice a day. And almost immediately I could feel the difference in my peace of mind and spirit.
It’s significant that this scripture ends on a note of encouragement and hope: “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we don’t give up.” The good seeds we plant, through our thoughts and actions and habits, will bear fruit through the faithful blessing of God. He’s more than ready to do his part, if we’ll only do ours. That’s “the law of the harvest,” and a vital principle of the spiritual life for us to take to heart.
Amen.
