Wounds

"Wounds so deep, they never show, they never go away.

Like moving pictures in my head, for years and years they've played."

-from "Easier to Run" by Linkin Park

“I’m not sure that anybody who lived through that one hasn’t carried with him, in some hidden ways, the scars. Perhaps that is the factor that helps keep Easy Men bonded so unusually close together.” -Captain Richard Winters, from Easy Company, WWII

"Scars remind us that the past was real." -William Shakespeare

Do any of you remember those old cliche kung fu movies? They always start out in such a way where they show the hero as a baby with his family. Then the villain comes in and murders the child's family, burns down the house and it shows a dramatic scene of the baby crying alone in the dark.

Then for the rest of his life (at least in the movie), he is driven by only one desire: revenge. That festering wound in his heart became his identity. It was the only thing he desired: to see the man who killed his family dead.

Recently, I have been thinking a lot about wounds. We are a people who in many ways can let wounds define us. Many charities are started because of a person seeing a wound. Invisible Children, for example was started because this group of guys stumbled across a remnant of African orphans running from child soldiers in Africa. They were dirty, hungry, and wounded in more ways than one. Seeing them so deeply moved them to action.

Our wounds can drive us. Sometimes certain wounds even from our past if they hurt us deep enough propel us forward in how we think of ourselves, others and even God. If we had festering wounds from an abusive father, seeing God as a loving Father is extremely hard for us.

But you know...God talked about wounds.

"But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed." -Isaiah 53:5 (NIV, emphasis mine)

Wounds we've experienced through hard times can define our entire lives. But then we see Jesus. He bore the wounds of sin, both physical with the cross and even more so spiritual with the wrath of God.

You see, when God looks at us as followers of Christ, He doesn't see the wounds from our past sins and sufferings, He sees the wounds of Jesus.

In Jesus, wounds bring on a whole new meaning. We can exchange our wounds for His....

Our wounds bring bondage, His bring freedom.

Our wounds bring suffering, His bring peace.

Our wounds bring chaos, His bring order.

Our wounds bring infection, His bring healing.

Our wounds bring sin, His make saints.

Our wounds are filthy, His are beautiful.

Our wounds show imperfection, His were perfect.

Let's make that exchange!

LDRSHP - Building Up Men

Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity and Personal Courage. (LDRSHIP)

These are the core values of the United States Army. A friend of mine, who is a student at ECSU, serves in the National Guard. A few weeks back he gave me one of the coins they were handing out at a recruiting booth at a fair, and on it were those values.

Now I'm a guy who is pretty foreign to the Army. I only have friends who are in it and I love the series Band of Brothers. However as I was staring at that coin the day he gave it to me, I was intrigued as to how Biblical each of these characteristics are.

Jesus wanted us as Christians to be all those things and then some, didn't He?

Then an idea was sparked in my head: start a Bible Study exploring these characteristics to build up men. Over the past few months there have been talks among Nav. Staff at ECSU, and in the Northeast Region as to how men are lacking in Christian fellowship. We at ECSU went into this year really trying to think up ways to attract new men and build up existing ones, so when this idea came to my head, I knew it was a God thing!

So this is what happens: every Saturday at 5:30 in the morning (yes, you read that right!), I lead a team of college guys on an early morning run for 2.5 miles. After that we drive down to a local restaurant called That Breakfast Place (seriously!) and have breakfast and Bible Study, looking into these characteristics together. As I'm writing this, we've been doing it for two weeks (technically three, but the first was a trial run).

Joel, the student who gave me the coin, helps lead, encourage and discipline the guys as we run. He was the one who originally suggested running at 5:30am! This has also been an opportunity not to just build up guys, but build up leaders. We've had eight guys come, representing not just ECSU, but UConn, Three Rivers Community College, and we even have two home schooled kids run with us!

Victoria, a waitress at That Breakfast Place, the restaurant we eat at, told us last week, "You know, I think it's really awesome that young men your age are getting together to do this every week."

A friend of mine at church who provides housing for one of the students told me how he always looks forward to the run every week. So I guess so far it's been going pretty well!

Who would've thought that college guys in New England could love learning more about Jesus at 5:30 in the morning every Saturday?

God did, that's who. Praise Him for doing wonderful things already through this!