Soldiers In Suburbia

{This blog was originally posted at Gloria Dei where I was a guest blogger for a few weeks}

In just a short time now, our friend Nick will be leaving his family and home to return to Iraq where he is deployed with our Nation’s armed forces. We hope and pray that his all-too-brief time with family and friends was well spent and that he was able to relax and enjoy his leave.

I didn’t speak to Nick a lot about his time in Iraq, but his being here sure got me to thinking about it. I’ve spent a lot of time this past week trying to put myself in a soldier’s boots – trying to understand what is must be like to leave a wartime environment and return to suburbia. How difficult must it be to go from one extreme to the other?

Imagine it.

One day, you’re in a hostile land, living in a compound patrolled by guard dogs and sentries with machine guns. You live in a constant state of readiness, always on alert. You carry a sidearm at all times and you never leave the relative safety of the buildings where you eat, sleep, and work without wearing your Kevlar vest and headgear. There are indigenous people who are glad you are there, some who hate you, and some who want to kill you. And, because you can’t tell one from the other on sight, you must regard everyone with suspicion. At any time, a split-second decision may have to be made regarding the question “friend or foe?” The outcome of this choice, made so hastily yet reinforced with months of repetitive drills and training, may affect whether you or those you serve with live or die.

This is your life.
Every day.
24-7.
For months at a time.

Now, imagine 48 hours later, you are in suburbia.
Would you feel weird standing at Wal-Mart, McDonalds, or the Mall? Surreal? Would you feel naked without your Kevlar, without the comforting weight of your sidearm at your hip? Would you look at all the smiling, laughing faces and ask “How can you be so happy? Don’t you know that there is a war? How can you be so naïve?” You would soon see that they don’t want to hear about this war waging half-a-world away from them. They don’t care. They are willingly ignorant of the reality of war… or of an enemy that hates them. Or maybe they just don’t believe it. Would you be offended by their apathy and distortion of truth?

I read a blog earlier this week about living as a Believer in an unbelieving world and the plain analogy of my own thoughts smacked me in the face.

We are soldiers, and we are at war with an enemy who hates us. We do live in a world that chooses for it’s own convenience to be willingly ignorant of a God who is Just and Holy. Romans 12:2 says “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

“Do not be conformed…” The fact is that we should feel out of place in this world, like a soldier in suburbia. Suburbia is not our home. Jesus said in John 18:36 that “My kingdom is not of this world.” As children of the King, our home is where His Kingdom is.

Meanwhile, suburbia has another king. 2 Corinthians 4:4 tells us “In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”

It is this little-g god, who keeps the world content in ignorance, blissful in a living death.
It is this god who distorts truth and promotes apathy.

To me, the challenge is in keeping the soldier’s edge, in not conforming to this world, in nurturing that out-of-place feeling and yet endeavoring to carry out the work of the Great Commission. How do we reconcile the two directives? We’ll talk more about it at the Yoke next week. See you there.

And don’t forget to pray for the men and women who are serving our country in the military.

All scripture quotes from the English Standard Version (ESV).