Would You Die? Thoughts from a Former Combat Soldier — Mike Peck — Ep. 035

So I have to ask you one other thing now, while we've got everything set up here. This is something Dean Taylor and I have discussed a lot. How is it that the US military, at least it appears this way, is so good at getting people to sign up to give everything, including their lives, for a cause in a country like they couldn't even find on a map? How do they do that? And how? And then, okay, so that's part of it. And then the other half is, why in the world can't Christians, can't our churches say, "Hey, we believe in a kingdom that is infinitely better than anything that this world has?" Jesus and His kingdom is way beyond sphere.

And yet we have a really hard time getting people to sign up and give their lives for God's kingdom. Where's the disconnect there? What are they doing that's getting people to—I mean, you willingly signed up to get shot at. That just blows my mind. I don't know.

With the way that—like I said, with the way for me, it was just outside influences. Okay. Okay. So to be an American hero, that's what it is. You're an American hero. You grow up, especially as a boy, you grow up seeing all these superheroes and these great men. And you have firefighters and policemen. And even now, even within the Anabaptist community, you see little boys growing up wanting to be firefighters or doctors. You know what I mean? You're the hero.

And in the military, you're sort of, I guess, it's cool. You're manly when you're in the military. And their recruitment techniques, they have a game called America's Army, and I loved that game. And I played it all the time. And it's supposed to be a realistic simulator, and I got a lot into that.

Another thing, too, is free college. That was one thing my dad always told me. He said, "Hey, it's free college. You sign up and you get paid even when you're in college." And so that's a huge draw. I'll tell you what. They paid for everything. They paid for all my food. They paid for my housing.

All my medical, all my dental, everything was paid for. And I was still making a paycheck. So basically, they gave you options in life. Okay. I'm starting to see a little more, but I'm just like, they must be doing something. I mean, if they can get people to go risk their lives. Well, see, even when I joined, I wasn't necessarily sold on, "Okay, I'm going to kill someone."

I don't know. It wasn't necessarily. I think one thing was, I think part of it, too, was maybe I won't get in a fire. I don't know, really. Maybe I won't truly get in a firefight, or maybe I wouldn't die. I wouldn't get hurt.

It gets worse when you're in because we would always say we sort of had this God complex. You go through three or four firefights. After a while, you start to think, "I'm invincible." Maybe not directly. But it just sort of becomes every day in a sense. And so you just stop worrying about it.

All of this must somehow appeal to a piece of us that needs redemption or something. You know what I'm saying? Because it still blows my mind that we can have billions of Christians in the world today that, I mean, if they're Christians, believe that Jesus is by far better than anything we've got here. And yet ask any mission organization, and they can't get people to sign up to go feed the homeless in their hometown, let alone go to somewhere dangerous. I mean, I know you know this, but I work with a nonprofit, and we send people into Iraq to help in the refugee crisis. And man, I mean, we get calls from pastors, like, "Are our young people safe over there?"

And I have to be honest, no. I mean, they're not really safe. They really aren't. But then again, Jesus never said anything about it being safe. We have this—are we just scared to risk great things for God? And yet, again, somehow the US has figured out a model that works. Yeah.

When you put it that way, yeah. Even now, when I sit here, I think it is—I was ready to die for my country. Wow. I was willing and ready. And that's part of where I stand now is, well, I should obviously be the same for Christ, even more so.

Because if I would have died for the world or for the United States, I mean, what? You might get a little monument or a plaque set up or a medal, but I mean, you die for Christ. It's interesting. Okay. So my brother-in-law is in seminary right now. He's getting his postgraduate degree in church history. And he said it's really crazy because back around the time of the Reformation, the Anabaptists, they had this really weird problem in churches. It was the martyrs' complex where people were trying to die for Christ.

Not as in radical terrorism, but as in they wanted to be preaching Jesus so much that people would get so mad that they would kill him. You don't see that anymore, obviously. Yeah. I don't know. I just—And some of that, too, even now, when I think about it, I am struggling. I remember when we were at SMBI together, my big thing was, okay, I was single.

And that was one of my biggest things. And I still believe it to this day. One of the best honors and one of the best ways that you can live out your life is by dying for Christ. And it's funny because I was revved up and ready to go. I was like, "What is the most dangerous thing that I could do?" Not so I could die, but because probably if you're smuggling Bibles into places where you could get killed for it, there's probably not a lot of people signing up.

Nope. And so why not I? That's where I think coming out of the military, the Lord has called me. Well, things that happened, and now I'm married. And so it's funny because I struggle with that. Because it's like, "Okay, well, now I wouldn't necessarily be so revved up to go, knowing that I have a wife." And in that sense, it's sort of difficult because am I not called also forsake, my wife, for Christ?

And yet we are called, I believe, to have families. And maybe now that I'm in this position, I mean, I can still serve and I can still give my life for Christ. But maybe it's not out there risking my life per se, but being here in my own neighborhoods.

Wow. I mean, it's something to think about. Because even, okay, you were in station in Afghanistan. And I don't know, the US military has had tens of thousands of troops and personnel, whatever, go through that country in the last 15 years or so, 15, 16 years.

How many missionaries have went through that country in the last 16 years? I mean, very close to zero, I'm going to guess, especially US missionaries. And yet there's billions of Christians in the world.

Yeah. I don't know. That one's got me. Were you ever at SMBI with—He was so radical. Anyway, so yes, he's in Iraq. We're about 25 miles from Mosul. So we're like, "We can hear the air strike. We can hear the—" And he's like, "They need Jesus, too." He's like, "What if I would hop in a taxi?" Because you could. I mean, you really could. At this point in Iraq, you could hop in a taxi and drive to Mosul if you wanted to. I mean, they would probably kill you at one of the checkpoints.

And he's like, "They need Jesus, too." And I don't know. I just had to think about that. I was like, "Would I actually be open to doing something like that?" But yet, lo and behold, a year or two later, the military had thousands of troops go into that same area and die to take that city back.

And yet we couldn't find one missionary to go there. Do you think you'll ever go back to the Middle East?

Honestly, no. I mean, I don't know. It's so funny because my focus in that sense has sort of changed. I was thinking about it today, like, "Where am I going to get called to in this and just sort of proclaiming Christ and proclaiming the love of God? Where is it going to take me? And what is God's plan for me?" Because it was so focused on, "I'm going to go to the Middle East," or, "I'm going to go to China, and I'm going to go somewhere where I'm not supposed to be," and try and show these people Christ's love. One thing was, "Okay, well, if I'm going to go there and I'm going to die, as long as I can get one or two other people to just sort of experience the love of Christ, then I've done my job."

That's interesting because we actually did an episode on—we were doing an interview, and the story just kind of came out and made it into an episode about how the church in North Korea got started. Very similar story. He basically made it to the shores of North Korea, hands a Bible to a soldier, and the guy shoots him dead.

Miserable failure, right, of a missionary. And that ends up becoming the start of the North Korean underground church.

Those things do happen. And the Lord uses them. Yeah. I think a lot, like you said, your culture and the context you came from made the decision to join the military an easier decision or more of a natural, like, "Yeah, sure."

If maybe the culture in our churches is a little bit more on the safe side, and maybe that's why you have less people signing up to give their lives for Jesus. Yeah. I don't know. Well, hopefully, this all can help be an inspiration to our young people to be okay with taking a risk for God.