EP 38: Are You Putting God First? Brian's Before and After Moment in His Military Career

The uniform can become a mirror, and if you stare into it long enough you start to believe it tells you who you are. Around our table, Brian shares the precise moment he realized his life was out of order: he wasn’t simply a Christian serving in the Marine Corps, he was living as a Marine first and a Christian second. That identity gap didn’t just affect church attendance, it shaped his motives, his leadership, his marriage, and his willingness to speak openly about Jesus.

We dig into what changed after a sermon in January 2008 flipped the priority stack. Brian didn’t quit the military on the spot. Instead, his “why” shifted. We talk about military leadership, character, and the difference between being a high performer and being genuinely high trust. Metrics can track fitness and efficiency, but they can’t measure integrity, humility, or whether someone will sacrifice for the good of others when nobody is watching.

From there, we widen the lens to ordered loves (ordo amoris) and why Christians need their devotion to God to sit above career, rank, and even good gifts like family. We also get practical for young service members: questions about faith at work, moral clarity, church, Scripture, and how to learn from both the people who are doing life well and the ones quietly falling apart. The goal is simple: a more ordered soul that produces steadier peace, better service, and stronger relationships.

If you’re a Christian in the military or married to one, listen, share it with a friend, and subscribe so you don’t miss the next conversation. After you listen, leave a review and tell us: what tends to take first place in your life?

CONNECT WITH US! Let us know what you want us to chat about next. Email us at hello@militarywellnesscollective.com

SHOW NOTES:

- Have you felt like you need a refresh? Maybe you are searching for balance? Check out this super helpful book: Amazon.com : ordering your private world

- Isaiah 6

- Find a local church and plug in: 

Church Search - 9Marks

Our Churches - Praetorian Project

Transcript

Welcome And The Turning Point

SPEAKER_03 0:23

Hey y'all. My name is Joshua. I'm back this week with another wonderful sit-down time with my friends here. I'm joined with my wonderful wife, Brittany.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Hello.

SPEAKER_03 0:34

And our best good friends, Brian and Kelly O'Day. And we are sitting around the table doing this podcast once again just to talk through many of the things that we've talked through over lunches and dinners and just looked at each other and said, Man, I wish a lot of other people heard some of these topics. It would be gratefully greatly helpful for a lot of them. So today we're talking about Brian's before and after moment in his military career, which there's a story there, and then there's a conversation there. And then I'm sure we all have some some thoughts on this as we get into it. With that, I think I'm just gonna roll straight into and ask you the question, Brian. Yeah, what was the turning moment? What was the before and after moment? What happened? Start us from the beginning and just kind of walk us through it, and then we're gonna pepper you with questions.

Living As A Marine First

The Sermon That Reordered Everything

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Yeah. So I had this idea for an episode, honestly, at the end of a sermon I preached a few weeks ago. And it's because I I had this way later in my career than I would like to admit, but I'm gonna admit it publicly on the air. The but I I would encourage those who are listening to make this shift earlier. Like today would be a great day to make this shift. So I had been in the military for I mean several years, like over four years of active duty. Kelly and I had been married for almost four years. This was like after two deployments had happened. So full first duty station. So, you know, I was well into my military career. And if I could define my career to that point, I had been a Christian, as we talked about previously, previous episodes. I became a Christian six months before I started the process to join the Marine Corps. And that means I had been a Christian because entry-level training and everything else. Before I really jumped on active duty, I had been a Christian for like a year and a half, two years. I had grown up in the church, so I knew what living as a Christian was supposed to look like. I knew all those things. However, when it came to my day-to-day, week to week, month-to-month life, I was a Marine first and I was a Christian second. That defined my entire life. I was probably even, I haven't wrestled through this piece of it. I was probably a Marine first and happened to be married second or third. You know what I'm saying? Like I just I was a Marine. Like I drank the Kool-Aid, I listened to the propaganda, I was a United States Marine and who happened to be a Christian. And that really affected a whole lot of life. And I can tell you the moment that it happened, it actually happened as I was listening to a sermon. Kelly and I had gone to an event, so it was kind of out of context event, and uh, we were listening to a sermon, and I had this like monumental shift of no, I'm actually supposed to be a Christian first and a Marine second. I'm actually supposed to be a Christian first and see my life before God, and He happens to have me serving in the Marine Corps right now. Yeah. That was a monumental shift. When was that? That was January of 2008. Wow, you remember the month. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:16

We had a lot going on.

SPEAKER_01 4:17

There was a lot going on in our life. Okay. January of 2008 in Dallas Fort Worth, Texas, at Southwestern Theological Seminary. The sermon was on Isaiah chapter six by Francis Chan, who I had never heard of before.

SPEAKER_04 4:35

He had just come out with his book.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

He had just come out with a book of Crazy Love. And the Lord just, you know, I agree with everything Francis Chan does these days, but the Lord used it powerfully. And I would say our lives. Kelly remembers that moment as well. And it it did some powerful things in our lives because we were also struggling through infertility at that time of in that season of life. But I walked out of that room and I kind of knew I was different. I knew that my faith in Jesus Christ was to alter how I made every decision. It was supposed to alter how I did everything. And that very much included this massive piece of my life that was serving as a Marine. I did not start to get out of the Marine Corps at that moment. I did not change anything obvious to anyone else in my day-to-day. I would call it today a precursor to me now being a pastor. But I didn't rush to get out of the Marine Corps right away. I did not, you know, go go tender my resignation at that moment. I did not any of those things. But that was a massive shift that happened. Yeah, about halfway through, maybe 40% of the way through what is now my whole active duty career. I just wish I would have made it way earlier. And so I would encourage guys to make it way earlier.

SPEAKER_03 6:05

So you joined the Marine Corps, you spent six years married, essentially, well, or close to, and then getting married and living a life that was I am a Marine first. Husband Christian is lower, lower on your biography, essentially. And I would imagine during those years when people would ask you, you would probably say you're a Christian first, because that was like what you what's the right answer to say. Like if you're in church and someone asks you, like, oh, how do you describe yourself?

SPEAKER_01 6:45

Yeah, those are the types of things, and this is why we're talking about it, is because these are the things that aren't asked, and these are the things that aren't said.

SPEAKER_02 6:52

Right.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

I was a I was going to church, and I was, I would have said I was a Christian, but my life, I I was struggling with uh way more sin than I should have been at the time. I I sin was just kind of pervasive still in my life. And lack because of that, my lack of being open and honest to tell others about Jesus wasn't there. So I wasn't as evangelistic as I should have been. I wasn't making disciples as I should have been. It affected our marriage, of course, because sin, of course, affects all those things. So, like in hindsight, my whole life was out of order because I had the Marine Corps in the place of where God is actually supposed to be in my day-to-day life. Again, I'm convinced I was I was a Christian, I was saved. But in my day-to-day, in my actual life, I had the Marine Corps in this where God should be in uh in the order of things.

SPEAKER_03 7:58

So the Marine Corps is what you thought about with most of your time. It's what you consumed your life. It was the purpose for the things that you did. Like, oh, I'm gonna do these things, even when you're at home, I'm gonna do these things so that I can be a better Marine.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

Absolutely.

Faith First And Career Performance

SPEAKER_03 8:14

And so it was the why behind everything. Everything you did. Why am I doing this? Well, because I'm a Marine. Oh, why am I acting right? Because I'm a Marine. Why am I doing these things? Because I'm a Marine. So in 2008, January, God used the preaching, preached word to radically get a hold of you, open your eyes to some things, and shift that priority in your life. Absolutely. I have a question. So at that point, when you reprioritized your life and realized those things and put God first and being a Marine second, did then your Marine Corps life suffer because you were putting God first?

SPEAKER_01 8:58

Yeah. Yeah, I think I would have assumed that would have happened. Like if I if I was thinking, you know, obviously hindsight, I'm seeing this a little more clearly than I was in the moment of it all happening, but I knew something significant was happening in those moments. I would have assumed the thing that would have kept me from it would have been like, oh, I'm going to be worse at being a Marine, or I'm gonna have to get out of the Marine Corps or something else. Thankfully, the Lord showed me, no, you need to get this right. What I do with it later on, that's my business, right? You need to get this right. But no, I from any metric you could look at, right? So, I mean, we get metrics in the military, like we get those in in spades, right? And so any metric you could look at, so personal awards, personal recognition, fitness reports are you know how they evaluate us in the military, all of those. I I went to a school after that, and you know, my class standing in that school, like everything was drastically better the second half of my career than the first half of my career. After this before and after moment and before. Now, that's not a guarantee. That's not a promise in scripture. Do not hear me say, Brian, you said if I put God first, then everything's gonna go great in my military career. I did not say that. Don't hear what I don't say. That's right. But I do want you to hear it does not automatically mean you're gonna be worse as a service member. In fact, you're probably I think the most likely scenario is you're actually gonna be better at your job because this is actually a job of service. It's a job of serving others, it's a job of sacrifice for good reasons and good purpose. And you doing that to try to prove that you're tough or prove that you're something is not a good thing. Because that's what was at the heart of this. I was trying to prove that I was a man, I was trying to prove that I was a good Marine, I was trying to like find my entire identity in that. And I don't think that actually makes you a good Marine trying to find your entire identity in it.

SPEAKER_03 11:12

Well, yeah, because when you think about that a little just a little bit deeper beyond the surface of oh, running fast and you know, yelling and doing all the marine things, right?

SPEAKER_01 11:24

So Yeah, it was always a struggle for me because I don't run fast and I don't do enough pull-ups or not physically fit. And so yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:31

You're more physically fit than most, right? But not in the Marine Corps, I wasn't never. The Marine Corps just full of super fit people. So but the point, so you were you were doing things that you your mindset was, I want to be a good Marine, so I'm gonna do all these things to be a good Marine, but the the why behind it was also for your own selfish gain.

SPEAKER_02 11:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 11:58

And so I think what a lot of people don't realize is in a job that is meant to be a job of service, that oozes out of you if you're doing it for the wrong reasons, for selfish reasons. That's the exact opposite. Is being selfish or being a servant. If you're being a servant, you're you're in it for others. If you're being selfish, you're in it for yourself.

SPEAKER_02 12:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:21

So it it it probably came out in ways that you didn't even realize it. And then once you made that shift of, oh no, I'm a I'm a servant of God first, and this serving in the Marine Corps actually f falls in line with that. It actually created a mentality space, a spiritual space, and and your heart space within that was all falling in the right direction.

Why Trust Matters More Than Metrics

SPEAKER_01 12:47

Yeah. And what's interesting is I think all of us could we could look at people, like look at leaders who are around you in the military, for guys who are in the military right now. Like look at just think of all the leaders that you've known in your time in. You know who is in it for genuine reasons and genuine service and who's in it to just make themselves look good. Like you know that you can see it in other people, which means that people can probably see it in you. We think we're covering it up. We're not. Yeah, like we're we're not. And so maybe start by thinking about some folks that you've seen, like, yep, that guy's in it for himself, he's in it to make himself look good, he's in it for the next rank, he's in it for the next position, whatever the case is. Or, man, that guy's genuinely helpful. And I think he genuinely cares about the mission. He genuinely cares about the people and all those types of things. And so all that's good. Yeah, absolutely. And and allow that to then examine yourself.

SPEAKER_03 13:51

So have you ever heard of Simon Sinek?

SPEAKER_01 13:54

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 13:54

He does like motivational speakers and TED Talks and stuff like that. Leaders not last and stuff like that. Yeah, he he spends a lot of time with the military and then like draws a lot of leadership from military ranks and such. And he does a talk about high performance, high trust people are the people that everybody looks for. And essentially, high performance means you're you're really good at your job, doing your active job, whatever that job is. And we have all these metrics to break down those things and evaluate those things on people. But we also want people who are high trust. Uh, the way he pulled from, I think it was the SEALs or something like that. Like the high performance means you will trust you, you trust someone with your life. And then high trust is you trust them with your wife. Essentially, okay, I trust you with my life, I trust you with my wife. And so what the military has realized, and it comes out in this way, is that we want people who are high performers, but we even put a heavier emphasis on a high trust relationship because we want this high trust in these small core group things. But we still struggle with our all of our performance levels are that's where we put all of our Yeah, because you can't metric high trust.

SPEAKER_01 15:18

Yeah. Uh we do it every once in a while, and like there are times that we'll do like in schools, you'll have peer evaluations. And so some of it'll come out there.

SPEAKER_02 15:27

Right.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

But it's really hard. I mean, we can we can put a stopwatch on how fast you run three miles. We can we can count how many pull-ups you can do. I can't say, man, do I trust you to, you know, watch my kids for the weekend, or do I trust that you're not gonna stab me in the back to get yourself promoted? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:47

But when you get up to those leadership levels and the pool is a little bit smaller, right? What you were just describing is it oozes out and you can see it in the people who are in it for themselves and the ones that you can actually trust because they care about where they're at and what they're doing. Yeah. And so you saw all of those metrics going in the right direction because you were putting the priority on God first. And since your why was, well, I want to be a good Christian first, it created a trust dynamic that fell into everything else that people saw in you.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

Yeah. Yeah. If I could universalize this a little bit to everybody, is there are I think it was Augustine that first talked about it. You see it in, it's usually in Latin, Ordo amoris is probably how you say it, or something like that. Ordered loves, right? So am I supposed to love God? Yes. Am I supposed to do well at my job? Yes. Am I supposed to love my wife? Yes. Am I supposed to love my kids? Yes. Am I supposed to love my enemies? Yes, right. All those things, but those aren't all equal loves andor responsibilities. God would actually have us to order those. That's why He says things, and Jesus is using hyperbole. If you don't hate your wife or your mother or your family, then you are not able to be my disciple. Well, he's he's using some hyperbole there, right? Like that we we love God so much that the secondary level, which is our family, looks like hate compared to that high love. But anyway, so we need to order our loves, we need to properly order our life. God is first, God is supreme, he is preeminent over all things, everything else, even our marriages, even being parents, and even yes, this high tempo, all-encompassing job of the military has to be subservient to I serve the Lord and I I serve him first and foremost. Yeah, that's good.

SPEAKER_04 17:59

What would be something that you would encourage someone that's like coming straight out of the maybe boot camp or fresh into the Marine Corps or other military branch after they've been, you know, eaten the cool indoctrinated and all the propaganda.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

I would encourage you to get this ordered properly. And I think one I I think about the that person a lot, and you might need to ask the Lord through the scriptures and through godly counsel and prayer some of those big questions. Right? So a question a lot of people ask early on is like, Am I gonna die? Am I ready to die? Is it okay that I serve in the military? Because isn't there a command about thou shalt not kill or is it thou shalt not murder? Is there a difference between those things? Is it okay that I'm doing this? Is it okay? Am I allowed to talk about being a Christian while I serve in the military? Am I allowed to read my Bible in my workplace? Am I allowed to say, hey, boss, is it okay if I go to the church service? I know we got other stuff going on today, but can I go to the chapel service or can I go to the church service or whatever? Like, is it okay that I do all that? And so wrestle through those questions, but get really deep into your soul that I'm a Christian first and foremost, and God has me here serving in the military. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 19:33

Yeah, it's good. I I also want to hammer down on this like time frame situation a little bit a little just to help help people think through this. You you you said it a couple times. You wish you had learned this earlier. So your first six years were harder, essentially, were more difficult and were less fruitful because you had these out of order. And so often we fall into this trap of, well, I'm here, I'm doing this thing, and I'm in it and I know better. And some people are just hard-headed and they wanna they want to learn it on their own instead of learning from other people's mistakes.

SPEAKER_02 20:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:19

I I say this often, I feel like I say this often. A wise person doesn't just learn from their mistakes, they also learn from other people's mistakes. And so, yeah, to go off what you're saying, I would encourage people to learn this earlier on rather than later. And man, I've heard so many people, my grandma and grandpa, my parents, like thinking back, like the the leaders in my life have have encouraged me to do certain things that they knew were good for me, but I didn't because, well, I didn't have the forethought to think through these things well. What would you say to those people and how to break out of that self-help will or like your own little box? How do we break out of that and realize what somebody else might be saying for the long term may actually be better for them?

SPEAKER_01 21:17

Yeah, I think, I mean, again, go to the scriptures, go to folks that look like they've done it well that are a couple steps ahead of you. And so again, if you're in a healthy local church, relatively healthy local church in your military community, like look for those older saints who are a little bit farther ahead of you. Look at their lives. I would also say look at those who are completely messing it up. Like there are guys that I served with who were, you know, around the time that I was getting out of the military, you know, 10 years in, they were a similar time in, and they were getting divorces and staying in the military.

SPEAKER_02 21:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:59

And they were, you know, becoming geo bachelors on the slow road to divorce or or just living as roommates or whatever the case is, quiet divorce, you might call it, whatever it is. Like I was watching that happen and realizing I want nothing to do with that. And so learn from the good examples, but also learn from the bad examples. And and again, all Always in scripture, always seeking Lord, what would you have for me today? The other one is just if I could get like really daily, I think so often in the military, guys are kind of sitting around waiting to know what to do. Right. And they're like waiting to be told what to do. I'm amazed at how high you can get in the military, like how high in the rank structure, only doing what you're told to do. Oh, for sure. 100%. It is amazing to me. Shocking, even. It would, I there are 06s that I have seen that I'm like, you are literally just doing what you're told. You don't, you haven't had an original thought in your life of being hyperbolic. But anyway, like and so, but we the Christians should be like, Lord, what do you have for me today? Well, you should do good at your job. You should figure out what your job actually is. Like, if nobody told you what to do today, what would you do?

SPEAKER_02 23:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

Right? Like, if no one told you what to do today, what would you do? You should be able to figure that out. You know, the military writes this stuff down. Well, I'm a rifleman. Well, cool. Go figure out. Like, there's pubs. Go read pubs. Go read things. Go practice the things that you're supposed to do. Go dry fire your weapon. Go whatever you can, like, there's stuff you can do, and talk to the person to your right and to your left about Jesus. Like these are these are the things that we would do if nobody told us what to do, or it's what should happen. But I spent a bunch of my life just like I don't know what to do. So let me wait till somebody tells me what to do. But I got but if I would have asked the Lord, Lord, what would you have me to do? Like, well, your job is to be a fire direction officer, so you should probably figure out how to do that. Like, oh man, maybe I'll go figure out how to do that and read some books and figure that stuff out.

SPEAKER_03 24:11

Yeah, tend your garden. I think oftentimes we forget, like, because because every time we talk about Adam and Eve, we go to the fall and we go, oh, yeah, we you gotta work by the sweat of your brow. So this is work is a bad thing and it like it's it's hard and and it's exhausting, and blah, blah, blah, blah. Oftentimes we forget that we're s we were commanded to tend to the garden before the fall. Like the work is a God-given good thing that we are to be doing.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

Genesis chapter two, the Lord God put the man in the garden to work it and keep it. That was before Genesis three. You were yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:50

Work it and keep it. So if we are to be, if we put God first in our lives and we show up to work each day and we are to work and keep wherever we're at, whatever we're doing, we're gonna naturally be that person who just goes and does rather than just sits around waiting, going, well, if I wait around and wait for someone to tell me what to do, then I'll have to work less. And that's a good thing in some people's minds. But if we're a good Christian and we're we put God first, we show up to work to work and knowing that's a good thing. Yeah. And then we actually go and do. And by default, we become the go-to marine that's doing what we're supposed to be doing.

SPEAKER_02 25:31

Right.

SPEAKER_03 25:32

Yeah.

unknown 25:32

Yeah.

Marriage Fruit From A Reordered Soul

SPEAKER_03 25:34

Sorry. I I looked around the table because I I was looking at Britney and Kelly. They hadn't said much during this this, but did we have any questions as we start to wrap up for Brian in this scenario?

SPEAKER_04 25:46

I didn't have a question. I just think as you were talking about that, like I could see in our family life just the change that happened. And I was I don't know, not I would have I would have not said that you were a bad husband before. You were a good husband, but it's almost like I didn't know how good you could be. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_03 26:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:07

You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 26:08

Like your standard became right. It was just like broke that standard.

SPEAKER_04 26:15

Through that.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

So yeah, because we husbands have really low bars. Like if like go ask a husband, hey, how's your marriage? And they will say some really low bar stuff, like, well, we don't fight too much. Or like, well, she ain't left me yet. And I'm like, okay, well, that's a low bar. But if you put that before the Lord, like, Lord help me to be a godly husband, you talk like that's just a different, it's just a whole different thing. Yeah. We're playing a whole different game at that point. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 26:53

I do not really have any questions. I think it's been fun to hear. I will say that the transition from where that happened and just like reflecting on our marriage. I can say Joshua had that transition as well. And I just I think it's really cool that y'all sit around and that we are sitting around having these conversations because encouraging people to see like that need sooner. I just think that was encouraging to hear. And I think it's also helpful to hear, like, oh, you're a pastor now. You haven't just always had this amazing walk with the Lord and journey and like been this perfect outstanding moral citizen. Like you're a human. I think that's cool.

SPEAKER_01 27:35

Also, sometimes we think that when we have one of these changes, I you know, guys like Joshua and I, we are trying to call out the call on a regular basis. Like, hey, God may be calling you to leave your current job and become a pastor or a church planter or a cross-cultural missionary. We are saying those things all the time. And for some of you, that may be what the shift that needs to happen in your mindset that you start to exit the military to go into pastoral ministry and whatever the or cross-cultural missionary work or whatever the case is. But some of you actually need to make a different shift, and it's this type of shift. And so, like Joshua became a Christian in the military, and that that was maybe an obvious like I'm in the military. Oh, now I'm a Christian in the military. For me, I was a Christian the whole time, but I I had still disordered my life with my the priority of my life of my loves. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:32

I I like the word disordered that you just used. I think you've used order multiple times. I wrote that down in my episode notes. Elizabeth Elliott. I used to say often a disordered life is the symptom of a disordered soul. And I think that's what you're saying. Like the soul was disordered. And it's just encouraging for me. I love hearing people's stories and what God has done in their life and how he reorders them because we're all being reordered. Our day-to-day should be reordered.

SPEAKER_01 29:02

Which is the opposite of like the old Hebrew word shalom. Shalom is like everything working together as it ought. Inside my own self was disordered. It was not working as it ought. And so, you know, did my life get easier externally? Not really. Right. I still I deployed another time and I moved a few more times and had to work through all sorts of stuff. But just in my inner being, there was way more peace and shalom than that disorderedness that happened for the first half of the career. Yeah, that's good.

SPEAKER_03 29:42

You touched on it a little bit for me. It was I became a Christian in the military and made that somewhat of a shift. But I think I struggled with this for many years going back and forth over this like, am I putting the Marine Corps first or am I putting God first? And then it really didn't get solidified, actually, in my own mind, probably till later in my career, which feels a little bit more muddy. Yours feels like it was very like, oh, I'm here. Now I need to be there, I need to reorder, and here I am. So that's good. I'm glad you're you're you're self-aware enough to be able to share these things so that other people can learn from these things and and maybe have to make a shift in their own life.

SPEAKER_01 30:23

So I feel like my entire ministry of which this podcast is a part of is trying to help people learn things faster than my slow, hard-headed brain took to learning. You know what I'm saying?

Closing Charge And Encouragement

SPEAKER_03 30:37

I think we've all been there. Uh we all here doing that. Exactly. Well, we this this concludes another one of our episodes. I appreciate y'all being with us and y'all have a wonderful week. And hopefully, if this got a hold of any of your hearts, make that change and truly put God first in your life above all else, and everything else will fall into place and you'll feel ordered in your life. We love y'all.

SPEAKER_01 31:03

Amen.