There are 15 guys in the sea of 40+ women on our squad. It’s like trying to find Waldo or one of those I Spy books you read when you were younger. And guys need guys. We need community and fellowship with other men (we called in "Bro-Fest ‘08" [no real reason why.]) And when it comes to serving, leading, loving, and living with women who outnumber you 2 to 1, we need each other to stay strong, to persevere, to be accountable, and to continue to fight for the Kingdom, for our squad, and for each other. So the first night we laid a foundation of love and safety among each other. Nothing can be built on any other foundation. We took a covenant to lay down our lives for our King, our squad, and the women. And boy did the Spirit take us up on our promise.
The first night was incredible. We opened up like a book; their struggles, strengths, hopes, and aspirations for the trip. From that night forward, I believe and know that every single thing we did together as a group and individually we did with heart and intentionality. From making sure the women ate first to praying for our squad to thanking the women with paper flowers to encouraging one another to helping each other with whatever the other person needed.
But nothing could prepare us for the mountain.
After lunch our boys of L Squad and the other men from other squads hopped onto a bus in the dead heat of the Georgia sun for some team building. We headed 10 miles towards a mountain: Currahee Mountain. It's famous for being the same mountain that the brave Easy Company paratroopers climbed for training in WW 2. And guess what boys had to do it for their training camp? L SQUAD.
But it wasn’t just a hike up the mountain. We had to climb the mountain in less than an hour, 3 miles up. Sounds simple, right? This is where it got tricky and where we had to come together as men to fight for each other: three men were completely blind-folded to where they could not see, and six of the men had to be in the air (carried on someone’s back, two carrying him, etc.) About 2 miles into, it was either make or break. I was one of the blind guys, and I found myself carrying men twice the size of me and not having a clue to where I was going and where I was at. There were times where I felt like I was going to give in, both carrying and being carried. There were moments where the guy who was carrying me couldn’t go further and dropped me. Blind, injured, sweaty, weak, there were moments where I didn’t think I could go on. Words can't explain the pain in our muscles, joints, feet, shoulders, and hearts. But I didn't give up, and neither did my brothers. And when we got up to the top, it was paradise. Georgia landscapes and mountain tops as far as the eye could see. And as we saw a glimpse of what seemed like the Kingdom of Heaven, we all knew what we were fighting for. As we went around and became vulnerable and honest in even deeper ways then before, I had a sense of belonging and purpose in ways that I never felt. It was as if I was with the closest people I knew; I was with the closest people I knew.
I always figured what a man of God looked like. And I would mimic what I thought that meant and looked. But for the first time the Holy Spirit didn’t show me what a man of God looked like; He showed me what it felt like. You see, for so long I put on this image of what my mind theologically and methodologically thought a man of God would act, look, sound, etc. But it never was about what he acted like. It was about his heart. And as I sat there with one of the most spectacular views my eyes has ever gazed upon with some of the most godliest men I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing, at that moment God freed me from acting a role I could never live up to and revealed to me my identity in Christ. I felt what it was, and is, to be a man of God. We prayed together, marched together down the hill back on the bus, and left the mountain more than conquerors.
A few days later as I was reading about Elijah, I delved into a story about how a woman knew he was a man of God not by merely acting a generic role, but living out his identity (1 Kings 17:24.) A few hours later, a really good friend of mine came up to me. She needed someone to talk about burdens in her life. The first thing she said to me was “I want to talk to you because you’re a man I can trust.” It was as if the woman who spoke to Elijah was speaking to me. It cut deep inside my soul. I felt empowered as a man of God to help those who need help, to show the love of Christ, to care for another. I felt like I was identified not by flesh or gender or economic status, but by Jesus Christ within me. Training Camp was the vessel that God used to show me my true identity as a son of the Father. I’ve never felt more confident in how God has designed me and who I am in Christ then ever before. I am a man of God, a son of the Father, a saint in the priesthood, a soldeir in Christ, and I fight for a Kingdom that cannot be shaken.
