2023-04-23 A Meditation on the Soldier

“And the Lord said to Gideon, “The people are still too many. Take them down to the water, and I will test them for you there, and anyone of whom I say to you, ‘This one shall go with you,’ shall go with you, and anyone of whom I say to you, ‘This one shall not go with you,’ shall not go.” So he brought the people down to the water. And the Lord said to Gideon, “Every one who laps the water with his tongue, as a dog laps, you shall set by himself. Likewise, every one who kneels down to drink.” And the number of those who lapped, putting their hands to their mouths, was 300 men, but all the rest of the people knelt down to drink water. And the Lord said to Gideon, “With the 300 men who lapped I will save you and give the Midianites into your hand, and let all the others go every man to his home.”” (Jdg 7:4–7 ESV)

Ask anyone who has found their life in Christ, and they will tell you. Tell you of one thing, in many ways: the joy of the soldier’s role; the fact this is a notion with detailed substance, not just something casually or familiarly bandied about. No, the soldier has properly made some adjustments in life and has accepted the end of other things, in the name of service. Family: gone, for a season. Notions of free expression, gone for a cohort-minded time. Priss or pomp around our very bodies or our minds: absent, in the true soldier’s willingness to serve. To meet the effort.

And to discover, amidst patent hardships, a joy and a camaraderie, a peace in Believing. We believe that longevity is no longer our creature comfort. Family is no longer our right and our ownership. Our freedom to self-express, to choose bodily disciplines and mental exploration, now meets punishing training and servile creative thought. Amidst all this the soldier is a reward unto themselves and unto their peers: qualities of fellowship, of humor, of mutual support, and of Redemption from the patent service-unto-death, meets each and every purveyor of this fine duty.

For we are no purveyors, no curious, no ashamed of a personal debacle: we have put behind us life with all its former sins and frightful or uncouth ways of being. One time, we were agents of our own self-interest. One time, we were servants of a spirit of the air. One time, we were notional in deep or harrowing bouts of Real Life, Verite, Insobriety or Mania, were notional of a higher calling we were destined for. Some way to lance the pain, to live into a purpose and a servant-minded sacrifice. So, no, the soldier’s life is not just something any old person can fit into their normal routine. The soldier has arrived at joy and peace, via that harrowing submission. Via that body prepared for lifting, and that mind for being tapped.