Published by Life often puts us between a rock and a hard place. I believe God gets us to these points on purpose. For the Soldier, this often means the difficulty of dealing with constant training exercises and the responsibility of being a parent–I want to be home and be a good husband and father, but I have to go away for another 30 days in the field. It means the difficulty of having signed up in a volunteer Army, only to have a second deployment coming with a baby on the way at home. There are difficult decisions, such as whether or not to make friends since we’ll move again in two years…do we settle anywhere at all…it’s like being pushed into the unknown constantly.
These tensions are especially felt during re-deployment. When the Soldier has come home after 12-15 months of deployment, the home is again in a turmoil. The habits that were established to manage the deployment are being turned over for new ones, in an attempt to rebuild the marriage and family into a cohesive family. Usually, after the first week or so, things start to get a little strained, if not totally chaotic, for the family. The Soldier may be overbearing or withdrawn. Arguments are common and intimacy is not.
I’ve learned a few lessons that I think help. One in particular comes from the Biblical account of Israel’s exodus from Egypt. The story is found in Exodus 1-15. I’m going to focus on Israel’s experience retold in Exodus 14-15.
Israel has been enslaved to Egypt. At one time they were the welcome guests of Pharoah. After the succession of power, however, Israel becomes enslaved to the desires of the new Pharoah, who fears them because they’re such a large nation. Israel also becomes volunteer slaves—they take on the gods of Egypt and therefore choose to be enslaved by the Egyptian passions for wealth, accomplishment, sexiness, etc.
Look back in your bible and read through the book of Exodus, and you find God saving a very whiny, complaining, rebellious people. They start out crying out to God for deliverance, and God hears them. He sends them Moses, who no sooner tells Pharoah what God wants than Pharoah makes everyone’s life suck: make the same number of bricks you’ve been making, without straw. In other words, “if you want to tell me what to do, then you might as well go do the impossible. If you don’t make the same number of bricks, we’ll beat you.” Israel, who was all so happy that God had sent Moses, immediately turns against Moses as if he is their enemy. Great team—turn on the team captain as soon as the game starts!
As you read through the story, you see God attack every single idol that Egypt worships—that’s what all those plagues are about. Then you come to the part about the passover. Here, Israel is told to slaughter a lamb and put the blood on their doorposts, because God is going to kill every first-born son who isn’t under a household protected by the blood. The picture is this: God comes through the land, sees the idols of Egypt on the mantle, no blood, and kills the children. He comes through Israel, sees the idols of Egypt on the mantle, blood on the doorpost, and lets the children live. The Israelites were totally idolaters. We know that because later, as soon as Moses has been gone for a few days, they take- the gold of Egypt that God gave them and make for themselves an idol to worship. So God saves them in the midst of their idolatry. That’s the kind of God we serve.
Now follow them into the desert, and you find them standing on the brink of the Red Sea, complaining again. “Dude! Did you bring us out here so Pharoah could kill us in the desert?! Couldn’t we have died in Egypt?!” Already they’re thinking of Egypt as the good place they’ve been forced to leave. Now God splits the Red Sea, and Israel is looking at the dry ground in the middle of two enormous walls of water—huge walls of water that dwarf them on either side. Imagine that Pharoah isn’t chasing them—it’s just them and the split-open sea.
Do you think they’re crossing it? Nah. They already think God is their enemy. They’ve been whining about God the whole time. Why do they go through the Red Sea? Why would they risk it? With Pharoah and his army in hot pursuit, the Israelites realize that going back to Egypt now is certain death. Through the sea, well, that may be death. I don’t think they trust God yet. But what choice do they have? They’re in between a rock and a hard place. They don’t go through hopeful—they go through freaked out of their minds. Don’t believe the movies and cartoons that portray Israel all happy and amazed as they see the water parted. They don’t trust God and they’re afraid of Pharoah. This ain’t cool. But they move on the possibility that God is a good God. They don’t worship until the other side of the water, after Egypt is drowned.
We’re generally the same way. God often has to push us into difficult situations so that, from our perspective, we have to choose to have faith just to survive. My encouragement to you is this: if you’re facing the prospect of a deployment, the difficulties of reintegration, or the day-to-day challenges of being in the military, these hardships are meant to give you hope, not despair. God was providing Israel hope when he split the Red Sea. It didn’t look like it, but that’s exactly what it was.
Romans 5:3 tells us, “…we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” (ESV)
Let God show you that he is leading you. Trust that he is out to bless you, not out to get you. And rely on his leading, even when the path he’s taking you on seems frightening.
Blessings to you,
CH Ong
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**Thank you to Pastor James Noriega, who personally showed me some of the principles in this article.**
