The Parable Of The Faithful Servant: Watchfulness In A Time Of Spiritual Warfare Series

"In an article from The New Yorker, Captain Donna Kohout, thirty-two, Dillon, Colorado. Letter to members of the Dillon Community Church. April, 2003. “I’m still praising God for the opportunity to spend five months in the Middle East both to serve in the largest conflict of our day and to witness the wonders He was working at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, where I lived. I don’t know how to describe the feeling that there was a spiritual element to what we were doing…

I wish I could describe the feeling of flying across what we called the T.E. (Tigris-Euphrates) Line in the months prior to “Night 1” of Operation Iraqi Freedom (O.I.F.). The T.E. Line, which marks the edge of the settled area, is just south of the Euphrates River. South of the line is barren desert… …One clear day, I looked down at the rich greens of the valley between the Tigris and Euphrates and pondered over the fact that these were the Tigris and Euphrates that I’d learned about in church and school my whole life. Genesis describes the Garden of Eden standing at the headwaters of four rivers, two of which are the Tigris and Euphrates. That places the Garden just north of Basra, within sight of where I flew almost daily.

In O.I.F., I flew only nights, except for the occasional late-evening or sunrise flight. At night a person can see every bullet and missile launched, near and far away, with the aid of night-vision goggles. Thankfully, most of what the Iraqis shot was unguided and too small to reach the altitudes at which we fly. However, it is still nothing shy of a miracle that given the sheer number of airplanes in the sky, they didn’t shoot down a single fighter, bomber, or tanker with all the projectiles they launched over those three weeks. Praise God for the safety He has provided so many of us over the last several months…”

Another soldier, Captain Ryan Kelly, wrote in an email to his mother, from Kuwait, in 2003,

“The worst thing here is not the searing heat or the cold nights. It’s the waiting. Waiting for the wind to quit blowing and the sand to quit grinding against your skin. Waiting for a moment of privacy in a tent packed with seventy other men, in a camp packed with seven hundred other tents, in a base packed with fifteen thousand soldiers, all looking for a clean place to go to the bathroom. . . . Waiting for the bone-rattling coughs from dust finer than powdered sugar to stop attacking the lungs. Waiting for the generals to order the battalion to move north, toward Tikrit, where others—Iraqis—are also waiting: waiting for us. . . .”

Captain Ryan Kelly, thirty-six, Denver, Colorado. E-mail to his mother, from Camp Buehring, Kuwait. December, 2003.

Source: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/06/12/soldiers-stories

The perspectives of these two soldiers from wars of the past remind me of our duty as Christians to serve God faithfully in times of good and in times of ill.

A soldier on guard, on patrol, has to be watchful, and quiet. They are serious. Early in the morning they’ve carefully put on their uniform. They’ve tightened their belt to fit their waist. Their uniform is clean and pressed. Their boots are polished and tied tight to their feet. They put on their knee pads, their field load carrying vest, a quartz size canteen of water, MREs which are ready to eat meals, a compass, a bayonet, sometimes a first aid kit, and of course their pistol side arm, bullet proof vests, night vision goggles, an M4 rifle, and extra ammunition. Often all of this equipment weighs 60-100 lbs.

But they are ready for combat, ready to fit for their lives everyday.

It should be similar with us as Christians. We should be ready for spiritual battle each day. We should make sure we have all of our spiritual armor on.

Memorize the armor of God. Write it down, and pray it every morning, and as you do, you’ll start to remember, yes first the head, the helmet of salvation, then the body, the breastplate of righteousness, then the belt, the belt of truth, then the shoes, the shoes of the readiness of the gospel of peace, then the shield of faith, then the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God. In this world of growing evil, and of growing hope, we must be ready for battle on a daily basis.

We have to be ready for battle. And our enemy is clever and crafty. Often times I will get bad news, or some sort of controversy or drama will strike right when I’m at my weakest. When we’re tired after a long week, or when we’re up late at night and very tired, or awake early in the morning and kind of crabby, then the enemy strikes. So we have to be ready day and night for the spiritual battle taking place in our lives and in the world.