March Or Die | Jeremy Stalnecker

Jeremy Stalnecker shares how resilience is built before the crisis, why agency beats victimhood, and how “march or die” turns chaos into a clear next step. Stories from combat, Scripture, and hard-won lessons ground a simple call: pre-decide your response and move with purpose.

• invitation to Mighty Oaks programs and resources
• defining resilience beyond the leader’s mask
• pre-deciding character before crisis hits
• the bridge ambush and expecting the unexpected
• choosing agency over lifelong victimhood
• adapting to change without losing calling
• persistence over perfection through faith
• responsibility to family, teammates and community

Transcript

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Gratitude And Vision For The Gathering

SPEAKER_00 0:00

All right, had lunch, bunch of sessions. It's been a great day. And uh again, before we get into this last session, uh thank you to everyone who put this on. So many hands and so many folks and so much time. Uh we were talking, Chad and I were a minute ago, about how much work goes into something like this, and then it's just over. And uh here we are, we're at the last session. But uh I hope that this isn't the end. I hope it's just the beginning for you. Uh, I know in this area, and uh having gotten to know Adrian a little bit, I think this is just the beginning. And we'll be back and we'll be doing this more, and you'll bring people with you, and we're gonna see this room blow out, and then we're gonna have to move some of these walls, and it's gonna be amazing what God is going to do. And it begins here. And someday I believe you all will be able to look back and say, I was at the very first one. It's crazy what God has done. And it's exciting, exciting times. And I hope you get a hold of that and get a sense of that. But uh, thank you all for uh what you do, thank you for being here, thank you for your service to the community, and and more than anything, thank you for taking time out on a Friday and a Saturday to say God and my relationship with Him is really more important than the rest of it. And you understand that, you acknowledge that, and maybe you're just figuring that out right now. Maybe you got tricked into coming. Sometimes that happens too. So if you did, thank you for being here. But uh, whatever it is that brought you here, you've invested this time, and there's so many other places you could be. I don't think there's anywhere you could be that's more important than where you've been today. So uh appreciate you all. Thank

Mighty Oaks Invitation And Resources

SPEAKER_00 1:26

you for doing that. Uh, one last commercial for Mighty Oaks. We have our books out on the table out there, and uh, for some reason, the ladies in our office that sent the books sent like 5,000 of them. And I am not taking one book home with me. So if you want to grab some of those uh after we're done here, please do that. And I'd encourage you to grab some brochures, go to the Mighty Oaks programs um uh webpage and check us out. As I mentioned, no cost for the program, no cost for travel to get to the program. We'd love for you to check that out and apply. Uh, ladies, if you have questions about what we do in our ladies' program, you're in luck. My wife is here, she's our women's programs director, and uh we have uh all of the resources you need to get every question answered. So stop by our table back there. But men's programs, women's programs, veterans, active duty service members, first responders, and spouses, and so we'd love to invite you. That's my commercial. All right, we're done. All right, let me ask you a question. As you have been here today, you started last we started last night, and some of you started at lunch yesterday,

Call To Prayer And Response

SPEAKER_00 2:26

and then last night, and then this morning, and throughout the day. Uh raise your hand if God has spoken to you about something specific. I won't ask I won't ask you what it is, but if God's spoken to you today about something specific. All right, now get that really firmly focused in your brain, right? We're gonna go through this last session. I'm gonna give you some principles that you can use to make the right decisions today so that you can act on what God has spoken to you about today. We're gonna talk about resiliency, we're gonna talk about what that means and a pre-decision. And then when this session wraps up, I'm telling you right now, so be ready. When this session wraps up, before I walk off this platform, I'm going to invite every single person in this room to come and spend some time in prayer. Maybe you need to pray with a friend, maybe you need to pray with a chaplain. We've got a lot of chaplains here, maybe you need to pray with some pastors, we've got folks here. But if God has spoken to your heart today, it would be a huge miss on our part to walk out those back doors and go on about our lives without acknowledging that God has spoken and spending just a minute in prayer saying, God, I know you've spoken, and this is what I'm gonna do with that, with that. So we're gonna take some time to do that. And uh, I don't know what your church backgrounds are. Um, I always joke that I'm Baptocostal. I'm not really Pentecostal. I was raised in a Baptist church, I was a Baptist pastor for a long time. Uh, but one way or the other, we're gonna have an altar cult. So I don't know if that's your tradition or not, but we're gonna do that tonight uh today. So be ready for that, all right? You guys with me?

unknown 3:52

All right.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

You ready? Okay, so now what that means is the theme is bold as a lion, and I know what's gonna happen. I'm gonna say, hey, let's pray, and you guys are gonna look around like you don't know what I'm talking about, right? Like he didn't say that in Spanish, so we're not doing it. Look. You'll be ready. All right.

Defining Resilience And The Mask

SPEAKER_00 4:10

I'll talk about resiliency for just a second today, and uh when I say just a second, I mean a lot of seconds, but we're gonna talk for a few minutes about resiliency and what it means to be resilient. The reality, and the thing that kind of brings us all together, is this reality that life is hard. There are difficulties in life, there are challenges, there are traumas, all of those things that we've already talked about and could continue to talk about. Uh some folks begin dealing with trauma at a very young age. For some, it's later on, some it's into their work life, and and trauma is just a part of life. Uh we talk to veterans and first responders often, and and when I'm talking about trauma, I like to say this: that trauma is not reserved for those who served in uniform. Sometimes we think we're special because we've dealt with workplace trauma in our jobs as first responders or in the veteran community. Uh, but but man, there are people, every walk of life dealing with trauma. To deal with trauma is to be human. That's what it is. The question is not will you deal with something hard or something traumatic. The question is how will you respond when those things come into your life? Because they will. How resilient are you? To be resilient doesn't mean that you don't get knocked down. To be resilient means that when you get knocked down, you're able to get back up and continue moving forward. But in order to get to that place, to live a resilient life, we need to have the right principles in place before we get knocked down. That's what I want to talk to you about for a few minutes today. I remember when I was uh beginning my career in the Marine Corps, I had gone to the first school that I uh attended, and I was getting ready to go to infantry school. So I was literally gonna cross the street in Quantico and go to the infantry officer course. And um another infantry officer who was a captain at the time sat 12 of us down who were second lieutenants, and he started to talk to us about being an infantry officer, being an infantry platoon commander, and what that meant, what that would look like. And he said this: he said, Hey, you guys need to understand something. You need to go through life as a leader wearing a mask. Now it's funny to me now because I feel like I spend my life trying to tear masks off of people's faces, right? Like we're gonna tear that mask. You need to uh you need to wear a mask. The people that you lead, the Marines that you're in charge of, they should never know that you're hurting, that you're struggling, that you're having a hard time. You need to hide all of that. Now I realize that as a leader, you need to be strong and you need to press forward and you need to make those hard decisions. I get that, but I took that wear a mask thing very, very personally and I extended it to every area

Pre-Deciding Character Before Crisis

SPEAKER_00 6:45

of my life. And the problem for many of us, particularly those who are in uniform, who've been in uniform, is that we put on that mask and we never let that mask down. And so it looks from the outside as though we're living, but on the inside we're functionally dead. Relationally and spiritually and emotionally, we're dead. We've got the right thing on the outside. People look at us and say they've got it all together, but we know the truth. Listen, to be alive doesn't mean that you're breathing air. There are a lot of people who are breathing air that are not alive. To really live means that you are taking one faith-filled step after another. You're moving forward into that purpose for which God has called you. And yet, if we don't make a decision before the difficulty comes into our lives, then we'll default to wearing the mask, we'll default to falling back into that place where we put up a good front, but on the inside we're dead. And I want more for you than that. Then I know God wants more for all of us than that. How can we live resilient lives? To be resilient, I believe, in large part, begins by pre-deciding. It's making a decision ahead of time that you will respond well when you get knocked down. There was an author, uh, he was actually a physician, Lord Moran. Lord Moran was Winston Churchill's personal physician. He was with him uh throughout World War II, actually to the time of his death in the early 60s. Lord Moran was a physician beginning as a young surgeon in World War I, and he was part of the trench warfare of World War I. And he he observed how there were some who would be in these trenches, and day after day the bombings would come and all of the things would happen. And in the process of that, there were some who continued to act very heroically and others who didn't. He took a lot of notes, he kept a good diary, and uh early in the 1940s, which is a weird time to write a book. He was writing a book. World War II is going. He's writing a book. He wrote a book called The Anatomy of Courage. If you can get a copy of it, I'd encourage you to, it's great. The Anatomy of Courage. It was a book that was an early effort at dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder, what we call today post-traumatic stress disorder. He asked the question: why is it that some are courageous and others are not when the difficulty comes into life? And in the foreword, he says this I observed that a man of character

The Bridge Ambush: Expect The Unexpected

SPEAKER_00 9:15

in peace is a man of courage in war. Get a hold of that one. I observed that a man of character in peace, someone who's making the right decisions, putting the right things in when the bombs aren't falling, is a man of courage in war. What does that mean to you and me? It means that now is the time to make the decision to put the right things in. When the bombs aren't falling and when our world isn't falling apart. So often we say we're fine, we're doing okay until we're not, and then it's almost too late. We need to make the decisions now to put in the right things. Why? Because a man of character in peace is a man of courage in war. It's pre-deciding, it's deciding ahead of time that we will continue to march forward when the difficulties come into our lives. I'll tell you the story and then I'll be done. It's a long story, so don't get excited. It's not one of those short ones. I uh I mentioned this morning that I deployed to Kuwait and then into Iraq, and uh that was a crazy experience as you can imagine. And we made our way from Kuwait across the border into Iraq and made our way to Baghdad. That was our final objective. But about halfway along the road, on April 1st, 2003, early in the morning, we were given a warning order. For those of you that have been in the military, you know what a warning order is. It's a be prepared to. The mission isn't completely solidified. We're not exactly sure what it's gonna look like, but you need to start getting ready. Something's gonna happen. We're gonna move. We got a warning order, and the warning order told us that we would probably be moving three or four miles down the road to a bridge. It was a very small bridge over uh a very small canal called the Saddam Canal. Everything in 2003 was the Saddam Somethings, it was Saddam Canal. And we've been making our way to that bridge. Now, the good news was that the Intel sources told us there would be no enemy soldiers on that bridge. Um, and I always have to stop there and say, if you were a part of military intelligence, um, please don't come and tell me that afterwards. Because I wouldn't be telling this story if they were right. So our intelligence sources told us there were no enemy soldiers on that bridge. So even though we made every movement at night in Iraq, this one is going to be in the middle of the day, and we would start making our way toward that bridge. Our job was to get there, 1,200 Marines. We should have known something was up when they sent 1,200 Marines to an unsecured bridge. But 1,200 Marines making our way to this bridge, and our job was to just get there to provide security and let the rest of the 1st Marine Division pass by. That was our job. So we started to make our way toward that bridge. That be prepared to became an actual order, and we started to make our way toward that bridge. I was the second vehicle back in our column from Kuwait to Baghdad. I navigated for our for our uh battalion. So I was navigating to this bridge, and uh man, I remember the day, and as I think about it, even now, I remember the where the sun was, it was

Refusing Victimhood And Choosing Agency

SPEAKER_00 12:15

about three o'clock in the afternoon, and you can picture that, and it was a beautiful day out. Uh the the place where we were we were going, we were on a road, but it was a dirt road, and on either side of that dirt road were fields that were plowed but not planted. You know what I'm talking about? The dirt had been turned over, but there was nothing planted in them. And we come around and we're moving toward the bridge, you can kind of see it off in the distance. Eventually we came around a corner, and as we came into the around the corner, we came into a straightaway, and off in the distance, half a mile, I don't know how far it was, I could see the top of the bridge on top of a burn. And as we came into that straightaway, it immediately became clear that those intel sources, whoever they were, were not correct. I'm not smart, but when the mortar rounds started to fall around our vehicles, we knew that there were some bad guys on that bridge. The ground had been plowed, as I mentioned, and so those mortar rounds would go into the dirt and they would explode, and thankfully they go into the dirt and explode. So the shrapnel was contained, but there's the smoke and the shock, the percussion, everything goes along with that. But as we came into this straightaway, the first thought I had was those guys said it wasn't supposed to be this way. You ever had one of those thoughts? They said it wasn't gonna be like this. And this isn't really one of the points, but it's an important point. You can't spend the rest of your life regretting the decisions you made with the best information that you had. A lot of us spend the rest of our lives regretting making decisions, even though we made those decisions with the very best information that we had. We made our way toward that bridge and we found ourselves in a fight that we didn't expect. And here's the first point. If you are going to live a resilient life, if you're going to get up when you get knocked down, here's what you need to understand that sometimes the biggest fights come when we least expect them. Sometimes the biggest fights come when we least expect them. They say it's not the bus you see coming that runs you over, it's the one you didn't see coming, and life can be exactly like that. It's when you say things like, This was not supposed to happen, or this was impossible. I can't imagine this taking place in my life, and certainly it does. The most difficult

Change Is Inevitable: Adapt Well

SPEAKER_00 14:30

battles to fight are the ones that we never thought were a possibility. Although it sounds trite to say it, don't be surprised when the unexpected comes into your life. The biggest fights come when you least expect them. The psalmist said it this way in Psalm 41 and verse 9 Yea, my own familiar friend in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread. He's lifted up his heel against me. The psalmist said, This was a friend. He ate at my table. I knew this guy well, and now he's become my enemy. I didn't see this coming. The Apostle Paul is a character we know from the New Testament. Paul the Apostle, he was used by God to write most of the New Testament, incredibly influential, and to say that is even to diminish how influential he was. What we understand about Christianity largely came from the writings of the Apostle Paul. You know his story, probably. He was a man who persecuted Christians, and then after coming into a having an encounter with Jesus Christ, his entire life changed. He went from being a persecutor of Christians to being a church planter and a missionary and the one that God would use to write most of the New Testament. An incredible influence on the world. Here's what he said in Philippians chapter 3 and verse 8. He said, Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ. There are a lot of reasons I use the King James. One of them is the word dung. That's a great word. I love that word. He says, Everything in my life, it's been a loss. All the things I would have rejoiced in, all of the things I would have found comfort in, all of the things I would have cared about before, they don't matter anymore. In fact, most of it's been taken away from me. I look at it and it's nothing more than a pile of poop. This was a guy who suffered persecution. This was a guy who was shipwrecked multiple times. This was a guy who was beaten and imprisoned and eventually lost his life as a martyr, and yet he said, I don't care. I want to win Christ. What I do is for the glory of God. The apostle Paul looked at his life and said, Some some difficult things have come, some things I didn't expect. But it won't prevent me from moving forward. But here's what happens some people are so overwhelmed by the unexpected. Some people are so overwhelmed by those things they never thought were a possibility, and instead of living, continuing to move forward,

March Or Die: Persistence Over Perfection

SPEAKER_00 17:20

they become the lifelong victims of a one-time event. Because I think some people in this room are probably living right there. This wasn't supposed to happen. It wasn't supposed to be this way. When I started this thing, they said this was not going to take place, and yet here it is. They become the lifelong victims of a one-time event. You know this person, maybe you're this person. Every conversation, it doesn't matter what it's about, somehow comes back around to who hurt me or who let me down. My entire life is now viewed through the lens of an unexpected event. We have to decide that when the unexpected event comes into our lives, that we will continue to move forward because here's the reality: you may not get to pick the fight, but you get to pick how you fight. You may not get to choose whether or not you find yourself in a battle. Often other people make that decision for you. Maybe it's a relationship relationship fight you didn't pick, maybe it's a work fight you didn't pick, maybe it's a financial fight you didn't pick. I don't know how you got to where you are, but instead of standing there and saying, uh, they put me here or they did this to me or they hurt me, and I'm just gonna stay where I am. I'm gonna be the lifelong victim of that one-time event. Instead of standing there and just letting it happen, you need to make a decision to move forward. You may not get to pick the fight, but you always get to decide how to fight. There's a great there's a great book. Uh if you haven't read this book, not a Christian author, I'll preface it with that. Victor Frankel is the name of the author. He wrote a book called Man's Search for Meaning. Victor Frankel was a psychologist, and uh he, early in his career as a psychologist, as a young married man with a baby on the way, was interred in a concentration camp. He's a Jewish psychologist. Interred in a concentration camp. His wife and unborn child were taken away from him, they would die in another concentration camp. For about four years, he was there and he made some observations. And and and similar to Lord Moran, he asked the question why is it that some people do well here and others don't? Why is it that some people eating the same food and sleeping in the same place and dealing with the same conditions, they seem to do fine and others don't. He made some incredible statements. But he made this statement. He said, the last of the human

Legacy, Responsibility, And The Call To Lead

SPEAKER_00 20:00

Freedoms is the ability or the power to choose. He went on and he explained this, and it's a wonderful book as he talks about this. The first half of the book is just him talking about his time in the concentration camp. But he said that there's nothing that anyone can do to remove from you your will or your power to decide what happens next. And yet, so often we surrender that, don't we? In our world, we call this becoming a victim. This happened to me. I had no control over this. I didn't ask for this. I am a victim of my circumstance. Listen to me. It's one thing to have survived. It's another thing to spend the rest of your life identifying as a survivor. God brings us through the things that we need to go through to grow into the person he wants us to be. And although we may find ourselves in a fight that we didn't choose, we always get to choose how we're going to fight. Psalm 90 and verse 12, the psalmist said, So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. Here's how Paul said it in Philippians chapter 3 and verse 10, that I may know him. And the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death. The Apostle Paul said, Look, I'm not going to worry about how I got here, because often how you get there is far less important than what you do next. We spend so much time asking, how did I get here? Instead of asking, what is it that God wants me to learn here and what should I do next? Philippians chapter 4 and verse 12, the Apostle Paul said, I know how to be abased and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me. How we got here is far less important than what we do next. And the one thing the enemy cannot take from you is the ability to decide, the ability to choose how you will fight. Our job was to stay on this side of the bridge. And there was a machine gun position aimed at us. We didn't expect that, and there it was, and now we had to deal with that, and we did. But the mortar rounds kept falling, and it was just getting worse. And sometimes when things are going from bad to worse,

Pray, Worship, And Commit To March

SPEAKER_00 22:30

you've got to make decisions. You ever seen that in your life? You made a decision to do this, and then you did what you were supposed to do, and then it didn't all work out, and now you're stuck. Here's the second thing you need to realize if you're going to live a resilient life: change is inevitable. Don't be surprised when it happens. We're always so shocked, right? There's a saying in the world of the military that the enemy gets a say and how the battle unfolds. And that's the truth. The enemy may not know your plan. The enemy may not know what it is you're trying to accomplish. Change is inevitable. Don't be surprised when it happens. We had to move from the place we were supposed to be to the top of the bridge where we could better impact the enemy. We had to move. We did what we were supposed to do, but the plan wasn't unfolding. We had to move. Here's another reality: success in any area of life is directly connected to how well we handle unexpected change. Success in any area of life is directly connected to how well we handle unexpected change. Successful people are not people for whom nothing bad has happened. Successful people are those who can confront the difficulty and adjust. Don't ever change who you are. Don't ever change your character. Don't ever take your eyes off the calling that God has put before you. But when it comes to the tactic of dealing with the enemy, you may need to adjust. And yet, for many of us, as the world changes around us, we're not able to make the changes necessary to come out on top. I told you a little bit about my coming home from Iraq this morning. I think back on that time a lot, and I was just a mess. I was confused, I was lost, super angry. My world had changed. What I knew, what I understood, serving in the Marine Corps, that was easy compared to being a dad and being a husband and working out of church. I always tell people I've been in combat and I've been in ministry. Combat was way easier. Right? Like I didn't know what to do next. Things were changing. There's a reason people struggle after they get married and struggle after the last child leaves the home and struggle after they have to transition out of a job and into retirement or into another phase of life. Because often in that in-between we lose ourselves. Success in any area of life is directly connected to how well we handle unexpected change. We moved from where we were supposed to be and got up on the top of the bridge. Moving was a good idea. Moving eight vehicles on top of a bridge was a bad idea. The enemy, they knew we were coming, uh, clearly, and they had pre-planned the target on top of that bridge. It was what we call uh in the military an X, it was an ambush site. They had sighted in their mortars to be right there where we were, and we pulled right into that kill zone. It was a crazy, crazy situation. We went from bad to much worse. Only by the grace of God did we not have mortars drop on top of us. I remember standing outside of my vehicle. Uh we were trying to deal with the mortar positions and trying to figure things out. I was standing outside of my vehicle, screaming into my handset, trying to get some help, and uh there were people pretty far behind us. We were having some calm issues, as you would in a situation like this. We're trying to figure it out, and those mortar rounds were falling, missing me and missing. We had eight vehicles bunched up on top, missing every vehicle and missing every marine. Going into the dirt and exploding. I remember one dropping right in front of me and blowing up. It was under the ground, blew up, and the percussion from the bottom of your feet through the top of your head, it shakes the inside. One of my section leaders was standing off next to me, was blowing on his back. I thought I lost a whole truck of Marines. When the smoke cleared, no one had been hurt, only by the grace of God. But things were going from bad to worse. There was an anti-aircraft gun. It's called a ZSU 23-4. Four-barrel anti-aircraft gun. It was sitting on the outside of the berm, apparently waiting for our aircraft to come over. We got on top of the bridge. Now we were the threat, so it started to spin our direction. So we've got the morning rounds following, we got this four-barrel anti-aircraft gun coming our way, and then we've got the other soldiers that we're trying to engage. Going from bad to worse. Have you ever felt in your life that you're going from bad to worse? You make the right decisions, you make the moves, you do the things, but things in your life are not getting better. It's going from bad to worse. You got out of the first kill zone, but now you're in another kill zone. The question is, what do you do when you find yourself in that situation? When I checked in as a second lieutenant to my very first unit, it's a small, uh small, it was a rifle company. I had an infantry platoon, and uh it was awesome. Second lieutenant, dream job. Charlie Company 1.5, that company had a motto, and in the Marine Corps, much like law enforcement, every unit has a motto and a logo, and for some reason there's always like skull and crossbones on the logo, right? I don't understand all that, but that's how it is. When I checked in Charlie 15, I got a t-shirt, and on the back of the t-shirt, uh it uh said march or die. That was the motto. March or die. March or die. Also characteristic of the Marine Corps, I learned later that that was stolen from the French Foreign Legion, that motto. So Marine Corps likes to steal, and they stole their motto. But it's a great motto, it's marine proof, right? Because you only have two choices. You can march or you can die. Listen, when we were standing on top of the bridge that day when the mortars were falling around us and an anti-aircraft gun was spinning around, we did not have a thousand different decisions we could have made. We allow ourselves to fall into that analysis of over-paralysis, or the paralysis of analysis where we're looking at everything and trying to figure out what we should do. When you're in that situation, you only have to make one of two decisions. Are you going to stay where you are and die? Or are you going to put one foot in front of the other and march? I like the analogy of marching because you don't have to be smart to march. You don't have to have it all figured out. If you've ever done it, you know you don't even always know where you're going. You just know you're going over there. But there are some people that are so overwhelmed by the mortars that are falling and the machine guns that are firing, by whatever's happening in their lives, that they step back and they raise the white flag and they say, I'll just keep breathing air, but on the inside, I'm going to be functionally dead, spiritually and emotionally and relationally. I'm making no progress. I've given up. And in any meaningful way, that's death. The better decision is to say, I don't know where I'm going exactly. I don't know where I'm going to end up. But I know God has something more important for me than dying in this place right now. I'm going to put one foot in front of the other and march. Philippians chapter 3 and verse 13, the Apostle Paul said, Brothers, brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended. I haven't gotten there yet. But this one thing I do, this one thing I do, the Apostle Paul was a Baptist preacher, because he said, I've got one point, and then he gave three points. This one thing I do. Forgetting those things which are behind. Paul had a lot to regret. He killed Christians. The Bible says in Acts chapter 8, he breathed out threatenings and slaughters. Paul hated Christians so much that when he opened his mouth, it just came out. He had a lot to regret. There were probably times of doubt and times of fear and times of giving in to temptation. Certainly the murders of Christians who he was now doing his best to encourage. He says, forgetting those things which are behind. I'm not going to live there anymore. You don't get over it. It doesn't ever leave your mind, but you don't have to allow yourself to be chained to it. He said, I'm not there anymore. Forgetting those things which are behind and what? Reaching forth unto those things which are before. God has something out there in front for me. God has something more than just my past. I am not the sum total of what has happened back here. God has something important for me. And so this one thing I do, this one thing I do, I'm gonna march. I'm gonna put one foot in front of the other, I'm gonna move away from my past, and I'm going to move into that life that God has called me to live, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before. Verse 14, I love it. I pressed toward the mark. I pressed toward the mark. Remember this morning we said, hey, when you don't know what to do, when when your vision gets a little fuzzy, when the clouds roll in, look to Jesus, who is the author and finisher of your faith. That's what Paul was saying here. He's saying, I pressed toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Paul said, I've got a lot to regret. I've got a lot of reasons to give up. I've got a whole bunch of reasons to raise that white flag, to be content, to just get by. But God has so much more in store for me than that. I'm so thankful that as we pursue Christ, victory comes to the persistent and not to the perfect. We think we have to be perfect. I'm not going to ask you to raise your hand if you've never made a mistake. But man, we've all made so many mistakes. To say they're mistakes gives us a little more of the benefit of the doubt than we deserve. We have all willfully done things that violate the will and the desire of a holy God. We've all made decisions to sin against God. We've all had to repent of things that we've done. We've had to ask forgiveness of people that we've hurt. We've had to move forward in ways that we never thought possible because of things that we never thought we would do. And yet, as we continue to submit to the will and direction of God, he will do a work in us that we never thought possible. Because victory in the Christian life comes not to the perfect, but to the persistent. Listen, the things that you guys do, that you're involved in, the work that you're a part of. It's noble, it's amazing. But it is fraught with difficulty. It's a difficulty that you have willingly taken on. But it's one that will require a predecision to march, to keep moving forward. In those times where it may be much easier to just stay where you are and die. There's a picture in the background of these slides. That's my uh platoon in Baghdad. We're at the Presidential Palace. Um to the far right. That young man right there, that's me 23 years ago. I still feel like that guy, but I don't really feel like that guy. I had this uh picture framed and hanging over my desk. And uh it has been uh since I left the Marine Corps, so for over 20 years. And I look at it every day, several times a day. And I used to look at it and and I was so proud of what this represents. We had some Marines that were hurt, but uh none of my Marines were killed, and we brought them all home, and it was one of those things that I was just so proud of for a long time. And then I started to think of that picture in the context of the story that I just told you. And now I can't help but look at that picture and ask the question what would have happened if on the bridge that day I had given up? Because I was responsible for those Marines on that bridge that day. They were going to do what I told them to do. Thankfully, we had trained a lot and we were able to move together, and it wasn't a lot of conversation or discussion that took place. But what if I had said, I'm so overwhelmed, I just can't do this anymore. We fought our way here and we made the right decisions and we got on top of this bridge, and now it's going from bad to worse, and we're just gonna stay here and see what happens. What if I had given up? There are 84 Marines in this picture. Half of them were on top of that bridge with me that day. Half of them would have died with me on top of that bridge that day. That's what would have happened. So when we talk about living resilient lives, when we talk about making the predecision to move forward, to march, when it would be easier to stay where you are and die. When we talk about finding ourselves in unexpected battles and unexpected situations and circumstances we never saw coming from people we didn't think would do this to us, uh, whatever the case, when we think about moving forward, pressing toward the mark, in spite of all the stuff that happens to us, it's easy for us to excuse bad behavior by saying, I don't care, it doesn't matter. Listen to me, it's not about you. If you won't do it for yourself, if you won't do it for the plans that God has for you, if you won't do it for the purpose God has placed on your life, then do it for those kids in your house. Do it for the person God has allowed you to be married to. Do it for that man or that woman at work who is struggling and they're struggling silently, and they look to you to see what you're gonna do, and right or wrong, they're gonna take their cues off of how you behave when things get hard. Think about a generation of people coming up behind. We complain constantly about this generation. Maybe instead of complaining, we should stand up and do the right thing and march when it would be easier to stay where we are and die so we can carry this next generation forward. It's not about you, and it's not about me. It's about fulfilling the purpose that God has placed on our lives. This is where we started, and this is where we'll end. Do you want to be the man or the woman that God has called you to be? That God has created you to be, that God has equipped you to be. Listen, the stuff that you all deal with, I mean, it's already been said several times. You deal with things over the course of a normal shift that many people will never deal with in their lives. And what a blessing it is to be able to stand in the gap, to stand up for those who can't stand up for themselves. What that means is you will see things over the course of a typical shift that many will never see in their lives. So the question you have to answer right now is this What am I gonna do? When things get difficult, when that accuser of the brethren, as we talked about this morning, starts whispering in my ear. When I'm overwhelmed, when the enemy seems to be the loudest voice, what am I gonna do? Am I gonna stay where I am and die and deal with whatever that means to the people around me? Or am I going to do the harder, the better, more courageous thing? And march. Guys, this isn't a go home and figure it out time. This is a take hold of whatever's going on in your heart time. And say, God, I didn't choose this place. This is not the fight I would have decided. To get involved in? But here we are. And by your grace and through your strength and in your power, I'm going to march. In just a minute, I'm going to ask you to respond. But let's pray and enter into a time of worship. Lord, thank you for who you are. Thank you, God, for your goodness. Thank you for your love. Father, I thank you for the confidence that we can have and we've had since yesterday. Every conversation, every speaker, the confidence that we can have that in spite of the work that is done by the folks in this room, you are bigger than any heartache. You are bigger than any brokenness. You're bigger than the sin that has to be confronted by so many of the folks here. It's a broken world that requires the peacemakers. I thank you that we can have confidence in who you are and the reality that if we'll submit to you, you'll guide us, you'll direct us, and you'll strengthen us.