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SPIRITUAL TRAINING
A Navy Seal Team is preparing to enter a compound to rescue a CIA operative who has been captured and is being tortured in an effort to extract sensitive information.
The team was dropped off and have hoofed it a few miles to the perimeter of the compound. As is with most of these kinds of missions, time is of the essence, and things rarely go exactly as planned. With the CIA operative’s life hanging in the balance, the intel the team had been given, and the years of training, the team begins to implement the plan.
One of the Seals has positioned himself under water at the end of a dock, where one of the armed guards is standing watch. The Seal’s hands slowly, silently come out the water behind the guard. The sniper shoots the guard and the Seal catches him silently before he hits the water…are you kidding me?
Photo by Quentin Kemmel on Unsplash
I sat in amazement at what I just witnessed in this scene from the movie Act of Valor. There was something deep inside of me that began to well up, and I say, “I want to be like that”. Oops, did I say that out loud? Apparently, I did, and I wasn’t sure what it even meant.
There was something deeper here, something epic, that I couldn’t ignore.
As I thought about it and listened for words from Jesus that would bring clarity, I was struck with the thought that every man wants to be able to handle himself like that. To be the kind of man that others want by their side in a battle. It is in our DNA, and that is why our we are drawn to stories, and situations that remind us of who we are, and who we are becoming.
The training that Navy Seals and SF’s go through is brutal, and can seem cruel and inhuman. But think about it, that training that seems so cruel is actually what saves their lives, and the lives of others. In a church culture in which men are encouraged to only “be nice” and “well behaved” we are losing the masculine strength that is so needed. This life is at times brutal, and we watch those we love suffer loss and heartbreak. We have an enemy, and living this life in a world that is under the influence of the Evil One (I John 5:19) requires more than a few tips and techniques to have victory. Men need spiritual training that can grapple with the realities of life.
Photo by Joe Andary on Unsplash
So, what does your spiritual training look like?
True Pursuit is a men’s ministry that is committed to the training of men in the spiritual life. To learn more about how True Pursuit trains men as disciples, check out some of our events and training programs on our website: truepursuit.org
Title photo by Thomas Tucker on Unsplash
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