The WOFOYO Podcast
The WOFOYO Podcast
Discipline Under Grace: Military Wisdom for Spiritual Warriors
Military specialized units often face misunderstanding from conventional leadership, much like Christians with unique callings encounter confusion within institutional church settings.
• Some spiritual callings aren't meant to operate under conventional church structures
• Military "grooming" parallels spiritual discipleship—often beginning with subtle invitations
• Basic training is easier than permanent party status because freedom requires more discipline and so does Grace.
• The honeymoon phase of new faith eventually requires disciplined choices even without emotional highs
• Forgiveness doesn't mean pretending negative events didn't happen
• Truth-telling in love is essential within church communities
• Discipline becomes more critical as you mature spiritually and receive greater responsibilities
• Understanding your spiritual lineage connects you to saints who struggled and overcame
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Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the Wofo Yo podcast with CW Bones. We are going to continue our discussion from last episode and we were talking about in our last episode. We concluded by discussing how the military often had specialized units, no matter what branch, but eventually the higher-ups would get a hold of them and they would try and misuse them and for purposes they weren't designed to do. In this cell we really don't need them, and we were comparing that to having a specialized calling on your life, only to have many in the institutional church not understand it. And we're going to pick it up right there. Wofo Yof, you've got to realize that there are some circles that aren't meant to be under the big umbrella, because the big umbrella will mess it up.
Speaker 1:And I remember reading this book about two years ago, three years ago. It's called by the Water Beneath the Walls and it's a history of what led up to the formation of the Navy SEALs and eventually what they did in Vietnam and all this. But it starts off with Darby's Rangers, it starts off with Marine Recon. It starts off with Army Navy boat teams. It starts off with all these different things that were happening and you had these specialized units that would perform exceedingly well, only to get misused by the folks in garrison, and then they say, well, we don't need them. See, they didn't do this, they didn't do that, they were a specialized unit. And that's one of the lessons that I remember learning from reading the book, because when I say reading the book, the Bible, there were these generalized things, but you always had these outliers that are not sinful outliers. These are outliers that God is using.
Speaker 2:David's mighty men.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And I think we can see. At first glance, people say, well, now you're talking Old Testament, okay, but there is a concept for David's mighty men in the New Testament and that's what we're talking about here Unconventional forces versus conventional forces. Conventional commanders don't know how to handle unconventional forces, they just don't.
Speaker 1:No, I'm thinking about just 100% what you're saying. You talk about unconventional. When David's on the run and he needs shelter, what does he do? He goes to the king of the Philistines and then he acts nuts, starts drooling all over himself. This is unconventional.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, and it works. It works for him. So, yeah, there are these unconventional forces that operate in unconventional means to come to the same mission accomplishment as the conventional forces. What I found in the military, though, is that oftentimes, you may be being groomed. You can be being groomed. Now I look at it and say, well, you're probably being discipled, but you're being groomed. Now I look at it and say, well, you're probably being discipled, but you're being groomed. I didn't know what that looked like until I got out and had someone explain it to me, and I was like, oh well, I missed that boat.
Speaker 1:It's going to sound like hey, you know you should start thinking about this, or you might want to have.
Speaker 2:X, y and.
Speaker 2:Z ready just in case, I'll tell you exactly what it sounds like. It sounds like this when First Sergeant John Wayne McCain, who was rumored to have come to us from Delta, he would never verify that he never wore his Ranger tab, never wore an SF tab on his shoulder. He always kept never. No one ever really knew where he came from, but it was rumored he came to us from Delta, but he sure could back anything up. But being groomed would be something like this hey, sergeant Malone, you ever thought about putting in an SF packet? No, I think you'd be a good fit. You should get that together and put a packet in. Okay.
Speaker 2:Then a few months later, hey Sarmalone, did you give any thought to that packet? You got your packet together. Oh no, I really hadn't even thought about it. Really, that's what being groomed sounds like in the military, and they're not going to hound you about it. They'll mention it once or twice. Now the truth is what I found out later, and of course this was back in the early 90s when SF wasn't recruiting. There was no. You could drive around post and there were no signs for contact SF to do this and do that. Now there's all kinds of SF recruiting. You can see.
Speaker 1:It was all word of mouth and recommendation back then.
Speaker 2:Yes, so it would start like that and what I found out later was a lot of your E-8s in group they'd make Master Sergeant become an E-8, but at some point in time they'd have to go back down to the line companies to get First Sergeant time. And what they did during that time? Of course they were a company First Sergeant and a lot of times they were recruiting. Who knew better about the next batch of NCOs to come into group than a company first sergeant? So that's what we believed he was doing, along with others. You know, is that he was keeping his eye out for folks that he thought would be candidates for SFAS, and he did. He would tap somebody on the shoulder.
Speaker 2:Hey, you thought about this, you thought about that. You know, uh, put in your packet, you went to SF or not, you still had to make it through the course, you still had to do what you had to do. Uh, you weren't selected just because you got tapped on the shoulder. You still had to go through the suck. So that's how grooming starts and that's how things look like in the military and I think it can be very similar here in the kingdom. Um, a lot of times when you're being groomed or discipled? It doesn't look like it, or at least when it starts off, it doesn't. Oh frank, we didn't realize we were being discipled until quite a while after.
Speaker 1:We spent a lot of time with him and we went through the same crap he had yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:Um, we just simply took his, his invitation, his invitation to come and have coffee. He invited us over for coffee a few times and we say, yeah, and that's how. That's how things start. Um, so there doesn't have to be this big, elaborate plan, this big program for this and these X amount of teaching points and all these things. You don't have to have all that to groom someone or to disciple someone. All you got to have is the Holy Spirit and be yielding, listen to what the Holy Spirit is telling you and invite somebody. They still have the opportunity to say no, but you did what you did. You know, you were obedient in your calling.
Speaker 1:There's this biblical story of Elijah walking by. Didn't know Elisha with his mantle oh, it's almost like what'd you just do. He's minding his own business. Here it comes Kind of like David with Samuel he's out there in the minding his own business. Next thing you know, boop, now you got all this oil on your head. Boy, you're going to be king. The same thing at the Last Supper and Jesus girds up his waist and washes the disciples' feet. You don't know what I'm doing now. I'm preparing him for priesthood, he said. But you're going to know, yep, and there's this preparation and you think that they're disciples. But then there's that next phase.
Speaker 1:I remember, you know, when you get to permanent party, because you go through your basic, you go through your AIT. I always said basic AIT, man, it's kind of like that Wilderness period, you know. You see if you got what it takes to be part of something and they got to teach you how to do something. And I always say that the military has the best way of teaching because they employ four different methods. You know you're going to get the by the book. You're going to get the how to break it down into layman's terms. You're going to get the visual, you're going to get the tactile and then you're going to get the repetition of that. So, no matter how you learn, you should be able to learn it in a military way, but you have to be able to do it.
Speaker 1:But you know, you thought you really went through something and it really isn't until you get to permanent party that you find out the intricacies of what's going on. And I liken that to you. Know, we think we're born again, we're saved, we're filled with the Holy Spirit. Ain't this great? And it really isn't, until you start walking it out. And part of the reasons we got sent to the wilderness was so we could walk this thing out that we had so much knowledge about. Oh, do you now you know? And and yeah, say it after you've been through a divorce, let's talk about it after you get wrongfully accused of things. Yeah, you know, see how you can put up with that. See, see how much your integrity, see how much of your church programs benefited you. When one of the few people that understands what you're going through he kind of down and out because he just got through going through the same damn thing. Yeah, you know, because that's where we were.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you know, cause that's where we were. Yeah, yeah, and probably probably the hardest. One of the hardest things is is go through all those things like that, whether it's divorce, um someone's treated you wrongly or something like that, Um, go through all those things, stuff financial problems come out on the other end someone's treated you wrongly or something like that.
Speaker 2:Go through all those things Financial stuff, Financial problems Come out on the other end and being able to truly forgive Because that is not easy. And I'll tell you what you have to do it every day. You have to forgive every day Because if you're not careful the devil will trick you into unforgiveness again. You'll bring those feelings back up and stir them back up. Next thing you know, you're right back into hate again. Daggum, it, I was over that. So, like you said, the military I found out that basic and AIT was, was difficult, but um, getting to the unit was, it was, it was real deal.
Speaker 2:And it was a little bit harder because I found out what was more difficult about being at my permanent party was the freedoms that I had. Um, I remember I got, I went through basic and AIT. Um, everybody else Well, most of everyone else graduated, went home for two weeks and then went onto their, their duty station Me and a few others that went on to jump school. We got on the cattle car, went across post and went to airborne school. Um, we in, got our linens and got our room and by that time it was probably 6, 7 o'clock at night.
Speaker 2:And I'm standing there in my room with a couple bunkies and one guy looks at me and goes come on, man, let's go get some pizza or something. I'm like do what, what? And he said come on, dude, you're off, you, you're free, you can, you can do it. You don't have to be back here until four o'clock in the morning, you're done. That was the first moment of freedom I'd had since I've been in the army, um, and so that was my first taste of freedom. If it felt good at first, it's like hey, man, this is great. All right, I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'm going to be free. Got on down to Panama and didn't get into other units, and it's that free time, it's that freedom, it's that liberty that makes things hard, because if you're not disciplined with your freedom, it'll bite you in the butt real quick.
Speaker 1:I'll always say the basic training was the easiest thing in army. Yeah, sure, physically challenging, cause I've gotten out of shape some, but really there's nothing to think about in basic training other than basic training. Oh, you haven't really. You ain't got time to think about relationship problem, you just train, train, train, train, train, sleep, train train train train and that's it. And hope to god that you know, if you're super exhausted, that you ain't got fire watch that night, you know so there's.
Speaker 2:It's not much different when you get saved. Um, you get saved, you get lit on fire. You'll go through, um, a period of of learning where the bible is just going to open up to you and it's going to be great and you're going to be on fire and it's really, really awesome. Um, then, after that, there's probably going to be a wilderness period and that's where the liberty is going to come in. You're going to have some freedom, some liberty and things of that sort, and that's where you have to be disciplined, that's where you have to. That's where that's really where the Holy Spirit is going to find out. Okay, are you going to do what you're supposed to be doing even when no one's looking? Are you going to be doing what you're supposed to be doing when you don't feel the overwhelming urge to do it all the time?
Speaker 2:Because when I first got saved man, all I wanted to do was read the Bible. Oh yeah, I didn't want to watch TV, I didn't want to listen to anything other than Christian music. I didn't want to do anything. Then, once that kind of honeymoon phase, I guess, wear off, all those other things start knocking on the door again, those things that I was supposed to be repenting from turning away from. And that's where the discipline comes in. Do I have the discipline to change the channel when I know this is probably something that I don't need to be watching? This is something I got a problem with and I don't need to be watching. Do I have the discipline to to turn away from this when I know that I've got a problem with it? I should. I should be doing it.
Speaker 1:I'm glad you bought that up, because that was definitely one of the things I wanted to cover was people go oh, we're under grace, yep still got, yep Still got to be disciplined.
Speaker 2:You got to be disciplined under grace. Grace is no excuse to go do, smoke, smoke, chew and do everything that girls want to do.
Speaker 1:A few minutes ago, you bought up. You know forgiveness, you know trying. Let me tell you one thing after being through the wilderness, here's what makes it easy Forgive. I found out. And this might just be my personality as long as I can tell the truth, I ain't got to hold a grudge if I hold it in not to be mean, not to be nasty, not to be that, but not to be nasty, not to be that, but hold this. No, this is what happened. You know this is what happened. I know this is what happened. Now do I forgive you? Yeah, but what we're not going to do is pretend and brush stuff under the rug and say that it never happened. Because this is what happened and I forgive you. You know it doesn't weigh on my mind. I think a lot of it. You have to acknowledge the truth, or else it's just going to eat at you.
Speaker 1:You know, and I think we're taught to brush everything under the rug in our church. Walk in that bureaucracy, that monster can, can go. Oh, if you dare to speak the truth that something negative happened in this setting, don't you realize the harm that could do to the church? Well, lying is more harmful. Covering it up, sweeping it under the rug, doesn't mean you broadcast everything. But we're not calling apples oranges either.
Speaker 2:If it's an apple, it it's doggone apple yeah, I had, uh, I had resonated in myself that, um, and and I got this from from my mother uh, my mother explained to me one night she goes you know, if you just keep your mouth shut and let everyone tell their lies, the people who know you will know that it's lies. The truth will come out. I said, okay, I understood that it wasn't easy, very, very hard. But if someone asks me, I'm not going to lie. If someone asks me, I'm going to give them the truth. I'm not going to say it hateful either. I'll give them the truth. I'm not going to say it hateful either. I'll give them the truth, and I think we should be doing that as Christians too.
Speaker 2:We should be telling the truth about abortion. We should be telling the truth about homosexuality. We should be telling the truth about all manner of sin. We should be telling the truth, truth about all manner of sin. We should be telling the truth. We shouldn't have to feel like we need to watch our tongue or to mind our P's and Q's, especially in church circles. That's probably where I'm going to scream at the loudest, because this is among people that should know. Yeah, so yeah, it's, as long as we're doing it in love and we're doing it in the spirit of forgiveness, and I learned that sometimes the very forgiveness that I was able to come to today, I may not have that same forgiveness tomorrow if I'm not careful, because the enemy will slip you up if you can't care for it.
Speaker 1:And again, that's one of those things about discipline is man. Again, grace, never forget. You're under grace, never forget. But grace is also the anointing of God on you for a purpose. So here's the deal with grace Grace means that God has a purpose for you. Therefore, it is your responsibility to be disciplined in a manner that, when he calls you to do something that you are proficient in performing, and if you've got a whole bunch of gunk and unforgiveness and you're distracted all the time and you're letting all these things of the world creep in, be particularly careful. One of the things about being disciplined is, lord, is this hindering me from being effective for your kingdom? You mentioned that. Freedom man.
Speaker 1:Is it great to go have a pizza every now and then, especially after? I remember the best pizza I ever had for that second I remember just thinking how good it tasted. Been in over in Egypt, operation Bright Star three, three and a half months. We're getting ready to fly out. That's right before the Islamic Jihad shot up the tour buses we were taking and then that event got brushed under the rug and then we put them bastards in power. Let's see, yeah, yeah, in less than 20 years, and that didn't last very long, but getting ready to fly out of Cairo West Airport, going to fly out about 4 o'clock in 0400. Going to fly out and what do they have? They have a Pizza Hut tent, muslim country. You think that's pork sausage on that pizza? That's goat sausage.
Speaker 1:Let me tell you it's good, go make it. It does, man, it was so good. But would you want to eat Pizza Hut all the time? No, no, you ain't going to be able to do PT if you eat Pizza Hut all the time. I remember one of the lessons they taught us. We had this master sergeant decide he was going to do PT. He had been on the trail, been there, done that. All of a sudden we start singing some different cadences. A little change up. He comes up. Oh man, this guy's all right. He goes, all right. He says this Monday this is going to sweat out. He said that pain you're feeling, that's that McDonald's you ate. You just feel the all that bad food that you ate over the weekend. He knew exactly what he was doing. He knew what us kids were doing and, man, it was a lesson that if you got to perform, eat right, get you some sleep on time.
Speaker 2:We did it every day in the age of second. We ate our fill and drank our fill every day, but we PT'd our ass off every morning. The best, worst pizza I ever had was that night after checking in at Jump Schools. Anthony's Pizza right down the street oh man, a little straight mushroom cheeseburger. Oh man, the best, worst pizza you'll ever had Now, probably the best pizza I've ever had in my life was at Panama, at Nopoli's. A little pizza place I believe it is the corner of J Street and 4th and July Avenue. I don't even think it's there anymore. I think that whole place has changed down there now. Man pizza had the Stone Hearth pizza oven that they cooked them in. Oh man, it was really great. It was awesome pizza. Best pizza I ever had was in a Latin country.
Speaker 1:Bojo's Colorado-style pizza. There's sick, so good. They got a close second in Chicago place called Lou Malnati's.
Speaker 2:We did the same thing in Panama, though. You know we ate our fill, drank our fill, but we PT our ass off every morning.
Speaker 1:Let me tell you something the older you get, the less you can do that.
Speaker 2:That's true.
Speaker 1:So as you mature as a believer and you get disciplined in that grace, you're going to find out that you get called to do higher things. You get called to do bigger and better things, and those things that you might have got away with earlier in your walk, you ain't getting away with it. Why? Because the Lord needs integrity. He does.
Speaker 2:He needs integrity. The older you get just like you talked about the older our physical bodies get, the more discipline it requires. I had a guy I work with he's putting in. He just put in his packet for retirement here at the end of the year, had a heart attack Monday morning. He's my age, we're the same age, and I'm sitting there going, man, you know. So I guess we're at the age now where you know where we got friends that start having heart attacks. I'm going, man, so I'm looking at stuff like that, going.
Speaker 2:Okay, it's time to start thinking, you know, it's time to start getting even a little bit more disciplined with the body, paying more attention to what you're eating. You know, my colleague, my buddy, he's doing great, he's home now and he's going to have to walk his walk. But I'm going to have to make a decision on, you know, be a little more disciplined on what I eat, you know, do I need to start, you know, walking more? Do I need to start running more Things of that sort?
Speaker 2:Because as time goes on and you age, you can't talk your way out of that stuff. You may have been able to talk your way out of some things when you were younger, but you can't talk your way out of time, out of some things when you were younger, but you can't talk your way out of time. And the same thing comes to our faith. When it comes to the kingdom, the more mature you get in the scripture, the more mature you get in your relationship with Jesus, the more responsibility he's going to put on you, the more responsible he's going to expect you to be, and you can't talk your way out of it.
Speaker 1:One of the things about the military I never understood. And this is so garrisoned, it is so big production and don't get me wrong, whether a church is small or big, if you want to function effectively. In the kingdom we had done an episode called the Commander's Intent You've got to know the Commander's Intent. If you know the Commander's Intent, you can make adjustments and all this other stuff. If not, you're going to have a whole bunch of people micromanaging you and you'll never be combat effective. You want an example out of that? Just uh, old pop culture reference. Look at heartbreak Ridge. Uh, malcolm powers, major powers, major power he's. He's a micromanager, he wants to factor in everything. And old gunny highway he's. He'd been there, done that, knows how how it really works. And we're going to improvise, we're going to learn how to do this stuff for real. So you know the micromanaging and all that stuff can happen. But as long as you're on the same page with the commander's intent, that allows you to function effectively. As long as you're trained well, that overriding thing will allow you to work together.
Speaker 1:Now I remember inspections. We're having an inspection Now. God's honest truth, if you really want to know what's going on, the last thing you want to do is announce that you're having an inspection. It's going to be the dog and pony show. It's going to be doing all this. It's the furthest thing from the reality of what's going on in the day-to-day. Whenever they announce they're having inspections in the day-to-day, whenever they announce they're having inspections no-transcript piss test, we'll see if you've been doing any drugs over the weekend you know the reality would be a surprise inspection and oh, what is the first sergeant doing in my room at ease? You know that's the way that works and that gives you. Okay, no, we're going to look through this stuff for real and we like to. In the, in the bigger churches and the way this entertainment culture is. We want to make everything a big-time battalion inspection Again looks nice. Furthest thing from real soldiering that you can get.
Speaker 2:There's a place for it, though For what goes on in garrison, it does have a battlefield application. I like inspection. I really did. I didn't necessarily like the day or two leading up to it, because it was, it was work. It's a lot of work, uh, stripping floors, laying wax, uh, cleaning your, your, your room, all your gear. It's, it's a lot of work, um, but I'll tell you what I did like about it. I liked it when, when my commander and that first sergeant, or my commander and that sergeant major, I liked it when they came into that room and they came to my room and they looked around and they tried to find something, they tried to find a gig and they couldn't. I liked I liked that when they inspected those dress screens, that dress uniform, and they, they looked at it and there was nothing wrong. They told you good job. I liked those things.
Speaker 2:Sure, and I think there's there's some of that that goes on in the church. We, we, some of that is pride and ego. We, we love to hear, we love to hear our commander In this case, we love to hear Jesus say good job, okay. So there's nothing wrong with that. We just got to be understanding that we're not always going to get a good job. Okay, he's not in the habit of of handing out attaboys, but if you get one, then hold on to it.
Speaker 2:But the battlefield application to that is all the preparation that goes into it, sure. So, yeah, it may not be 100% realistic, but there is that battlefield application of hey, now that everything is clean, everything is squared away, everything is in its place. The thing is now you know it's clean, it's clean, so we know it's going to operate correctly. Matter of fact, while you were cleaning it, you were also able to inspect it yourself for serviceability. Oh, guess what? While you were cleaning your canteen covers, you discovered that one of the snaps didn't work. Go turn that in, get a new canteen cover. So there was some application to that.
Speaker 1:There's light in your waterproof bag.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's light in your waterproof bag. Yeah, there's light in your waterproof bag. Go get a new one, cause that one, that one, ain't so waterproof anymore, um. So, yeah, there, there is purpose behind the dog and pony show, um, but uh, if you're not careful and it becomes about the dog and pony show, only that's when it becomes dangerous. The dog and pony show, only that's when it becomes dangerous.
Speaker 1:My thing is about those inspections. I said surprise inspections always. I thought surprise inspections that gives you the reality of the situation because in truth you're supposed to have your stuff serviceable at all times.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that'll let you know how you're really living. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and don't get me wrong, it looked sharp. I had a friend of mine.
Speaker 2:Truth is first, sergeant, didn't want to know how you were like that.
Speaker 1:He already knew. Yeah, he had a hangover himself. But I had a friend I hold my tongue quite a bit because I know we're dealing with some mental stuff. I hold my tongue quite a bit because I know we're dealing with some mental stuff and pissed him off because he just hates Donald Trump. If Donald Trump wiped his butt with his right hand, he'd have been complaining that he didn't use his left. But he gets on there and was talking about the Army parade 200. Well, this just looks like a blah blah, blah, blah, blah. It looks like a some production. I'm going have you ever been in the Army? Because I got new. Well, the whole thing was, I was getting ready and he just came off. You were going to. Uh-huh, yeah, you were going to. Uh-huh yeah, you were going to, but you didn't. So that is what it is. But what I was getting ready to do for Little Miss man Come Unglued was every army parade I've ever seen, which is about three. That's pretty much the way to do it.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, you know, especially on base being at Fort Carson, they're hello welcome to the stage Passing right by you is this unit and its history, its unit, crest has been in this and this and da-da-da-da-da-da-da, and I remember, especially at Fort Carson, the amount of cavalry that they had, you know, with Sergeant stripes on upside down and all this stuff, you know, wearing civil war era, you know, or a little bit later, as they were doing Westward expansion, had authentic uniforms. But the whole parade, whenever you did something for the base commander or wherever you did any of that stuff, that's pretty much par for the course. They did the Army parade, the way the Army would have done doggone parade. But if you don't, know, that.
Speaker 2:Every year in division we have All-American Week. Oh yeah, all-american Week. May I tell you what? When I was there, I hated it, but now that I'm gone I look back on it and say, man, that was probably the best thing, one of the best things that we did, because really it wasn't just about us as paratroopers, it was about all of the retired paratroopers too. That would come back for All-American Week.
Speaker 2:And there was division review, where the division got on a parade field and did their pass and review. And pass and review was a time-honored tradition that dates back to the times when the military was taking, you know, commanders would review their ranks and all these things. So, yeah, you get that. That uh parade voice and the adjutant's walk, uh, as the adjutant would uh walk from one post to to the next and and all these things. Um, that is the dog and pony show. Um, and there is purpose for that as well. It built cohesion. It brought the entire unit together, units that didn't see each other the rest of the year hardly because of different training cycles and mission cycles and stuff. So that was kind of cool. So, yeah, the Army parade yeah, probably cost a lot of money, but I get the deal.
Speaker 2:You're bringing out some history. You talked about the cavalry, our Army, the dress blues uniform I think it was that which later became the ASU dress uniform. But the blues the coat top was darker than the pants. The pants were light blue, the coat top was dark blue. There was a reason for that. And that darker than the pants. The pants were light blue, the coat top was dark blue. There was a reason for that and that came from the cavalry Back in the day of the cavalry in the Western Expansion. The cavalry typically didn't wear their jackets, it was rolled up in their bedroll but their pants faded. So their pants were always lighter than their jacket tops and that's displayed in our Blues uniforms now.
Speaker 2:So you get all these little tidbits of history, military history about your unit and things of that sort which you can tie to yourself now because you're in that unit, you're a part of that unit, being in the 82nd. It wasn't just me being in the 82nd, it was now me being a part of a part of that lineage of those very first paratroopers at d-day, yeah, and even before that, in the 82nd infantry division, before it became a airborne unit. So you had something to be proud of. You had a history, a lineage to be proud of.
Speaker 2:I think that's why church history is important. It is so that you know that when you're saved and now you're a part of the kingdom it's important to know kingdom history so that you understand that you're not an island. You come from something great and there's a lot of folks that went before you and now you're related to them, you're akin to them through the blood of Jesus. So, yeah, learn that history. It's not just knowledge. It's there for you to anchor yourself to and hold on to, because those were saints who struggled too, and at some point in time we're going to have some struggles. It's always nice to be able to look back and say, hey, those are my brethren and I'm their brother.
Speaker 1:I would also add that man, go back even further, because the Bible allows you to do that. Go back and read the history of Israel. Read the history of Israel before.
Speaker 1:It's Israel, right, but especially in Israel. I remember there was a guy named Rick Joyner mentioned this and I go never put that together, but you're, he said, israel's a gaggle when they flee, when they flee Egypt and pass through the red sea, by the time they get to the promised land, they're organized, they're they're actually in the military array, they're in a martial array and you got three tribes on each side. You know, for all four sides there's functions, there's all this. As you grow and as you mature, one of the things that I learned in the military was this and the ultimate form I ever saw this.
Speaker 1:I got to know part of a special forces team. They were friends. I was never in that Outside sources, I've just had some really cool experiences, but these guys were so comfortable and confident, everybody's first name basis. Everybody was comfortable with one another. But they had been through so much stuff together they didn't even have to question how each other was functioning and it just showed up. And again, did I ever get to see him operate? No, but you could just tell it in everything they did If something ever went sideways.
Speaker 1:And you was around them, guys out in the civilian world and you was around them, guys out in the civilian world. All of a sudden the eyes turned into beads and the antennas went up and you know, do we have to kill something? You know it was really like that. But you will find people in the kingdom and the church. Bureaucracy will never allow you to do this. But I'm telling you, if you find kingdom folks and you operate with them, you don't have to second guess, and especially those shared experiences, you'll never have to second guess it. You know automatically where they're coming from and even if they see things different from you, it doesn't mean that they're there to hurt you. That means they're there to help, because you're not seeing it all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're going to be. They're going to be more comfortable in, uh, in adverse conditions. They're going to. They're going to. They're going to look for the adverse conditions. They're going to look for those places of conflict. They're going to look for those places because they've grown accustomed to it. Um, to not be in conflict is actually abnormal for them. Yeah, uh. So if you can find a person like that to be around, who has that, um, that experience within the kingdom, then latch on to them and learn from them. I think you'll be the better for it. We have gotten to a point where we're taking, we want to find the path of least resistance. We've become a church where we avoid conflict and all these things. I'm talking not just physical, I'm talking about spiritually too. We want to be, we want to avoid conflict. We've become risk averse and all these other things, all in the interest of being nice, yeah, and it just don't work.
Speaker 1:Not at all. Hey everybody, thanks for listening. We hope this challenges you and causes you to grow, and if you're a vet, we hope it makes some sense. You can always check us out at wofoyoorg, find out how to contact us there, or subscribe on Apple Podcasts, spotify or Audible, or check us out on YouTube. Remember folks, if you're going to grow, you got to woe fo yo Get in the word for yourself.