Grace Church

I don’t mind saying Galatians 6:1-5 seems a bit confusing. Are we supposed to take of each other or take care of ourselves? Is it both? Which do we do first? Which is more important?

As I meditated on this, God reminded me of my experience in Basic Training. In training, the Drill Instructor’s goal is to remove from each recruit his/her inbred self-centeredness. They know until the self-centeredness is removed the recruits are not useful in the fight.

This process begins by giving recruits many new things to think about/take care of. I needed to dress a certain way, obey orders, move quicker than I was comfortable, allow others to dictate my schedule etc. Failure to comply with all these new requests leads to even more misery. Some failure to comply with a DI’s request means a soldier gets “smoked”: is made to do large amounts of push ups, sit ups, running in place etc.

The natural tendency in this environment is to focus on one’s own issues. There is a lot of new information to remember and screw ups are expensive. First priority is to make sure you are “squared away” and don’t worry about anyone else. In fact, it is somewhat good if someone else messes up. If the DI’s are smoking another soldier then they are most likely leaving you alone. Sweet!

Unfortunately, the DI’s are also trying to build a team. Part of their strategy was to punish the whole team if someone screwed up. So, your knucklehead fellow soldier decides to not polish his boots or forgets to put his rank on his BDU top and BAM a dozen guys that did nothing wrong are huffing and puffing with a DI telling them what screw ups they are. It does not take too many incidents like this before the most frequent offenders are getting a lot of attention from their fellow soldiers. Of course, if a squared away soldier spends too much time helping the slackers, the squared away soldier has the possibility of screwing up themselves and thus being the source of the next smoking session.

In the Army soldiers were motivated to be accountable to each other. They bore each other’s consequences, so each soldier wanted to succeed both for their own sake and the sake of the team. In the Army, the consequences are immediate and very palpable. In training, it means increased misery and pain, in war it means death.

Not surprisingly, fairly quickly, each soldier learns to do both, make sure they are squared away and taking the time to make sure other soldiers are squared away. As the training progresses a group of confused pinheads who are WAY too impressed with themselves becomes an obedient, well-behaved, motivated, committed and perhaps even somewhat useful team.

The call in the Kingdom is the same. We must be freed of our own sinful nature. We must first deal with our own failure before God and take responsibility for it. We are also called to help others deal with their failure before God. We are called to be part of Body and each part of the Body is meant to play a role and be an aid to the whole.

So how do those of us in the Body learn to balance keeping ourselves straight but not being so concerned with self that we don’t look out for others? Again, it takes commitment. It takes putting the whole, the glory of God, the advancement of the Kingdom ahead of our own comfort.

Soldiers are motivated by the immediacy and the severity of the consequences. The consequences in the Kingdom are less obvious and in some cases less immediate. However, the Kingdom consequences are infinitely more severe and eternal.

The Kingdom also has another difference. Soldiers get the job done mainly by “manning up” — simply trying harder. In the Kingdom, the key is to rely on God’s grace. A commandment in Scripture means a specific promise of God’s grace. If God calls us to bear our own load and to bear one another’s burdens then we can be certain that the grace to do just that is there for the asking.

Lord, please show us the consequences of not working as a team in the Kingdom. Show us the consequence of not carrying our own load before you and show us the consequence of not helping others bear their burden as well. Lord, also show us how to access the grace we need to do what you are calling us to do. In Jesus name, Amen.