The Bigger Picture

When I was in basic training back in the 70s, I was constantly impressed by what appeared to be complete nonsense as they would assign tasks that were not only foolhardy but impossible. For instance, our TI (training instructor) would have us throw all our shoes and boots into a big pile in the floor, and then give us five minutes to find our own and place them properly under the edge of our bunks. Did I mention that there were 50 airmen, 3 pairs each and every boot and shoe was identical except for a four digit number on the inside.

He allowed that same five minutes for all of us to rise in the morning, get showered, shaved, dressed, bed made and in formation in front of the barracks. Yeah, we never made that time either. His impossible demands and our lack of supernatural speed gave fodder for endless discipline such as KP, force marches and barrack party of scrubbing everything not moving fast enough to get away.

From my perspective, all those endless, impossible tasks were pointless and irritating.m But from our TI's perspective, we were being pushed to our limits, forced to help each other, being molded into a team that reached beyond the routine to ridiculous levels of performance.  In just a few weeks, he took a gaggle of individual boys and turned them into a 50 member team of men able to act unified on one command and accomplish seemingly impossible tasks as one.

Our TI operated from a bigger perspective of breaking down a group of non-synchronized individuals in order to build them up into a well-trained unit of airmen, filled with "military bearing," ready to meet the standards of service and demands of war.

The difficulties of life are not always random and are never without benefit. Sometimes difficulties are from the Lord to instruct or correct us: "Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children....No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it" (Heb 12:7-11).  In every case, there is something to learn or benefit from: "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, a whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything" (Js 1:2-4).

God operates from a bigger picture, bigger than we can rise up to in this life. We are not in a position to see all of what God sees or peer into the future in order to have the 411 on what all is happening or going to happen. But, while we cannot see what the future holds, we can trust in the One who holds our future. He has the whole world in your hands, even yours. Jus' Say'n.