Chapter 12. My Defender is God. When I was an 11-year-old in sixth grade, I had a good friend named Ricky Luna. He was a bit clumsy and awkward, and I suppose he didn't look as cool as some of the more popular children in our school. Similarly, I was tall, clumsy, and overly confident. My school, Grace Hardin Elementary, was the typical worldly semi-suburban public elementary school. It had your usual cliques: athletic, musical, cowboy, preppy, druggie, and so on.
These subgroups had a big effect on who your friends were and how you're going to be treated by the other children of your class. Ricky and I signed up for band, and because of this, we found ourselves quickly herded into the less-than-popular bandgeek subgroup. This juvenile caste system immediately put us with the untouchables, oftentimes turning the playground and walks home into times of taunting and feuds. Well, Ricky had it even worse than I did.
Toting his brand-new Bundy Alto saxophone, sporting his strangely uncut and quite unfashionable hair, his gleaming silver lace grin, hunched shoulders, and an uncoordinated gait, all juxtaposed with a name like Luna, made him a trophy in the bullying and harassment game. But he was my friend. One afternoon, as we began our daily mission and maneuvers to walk home unscathed, we were met by one of the chief taunters, Frankie Jones.
He started the usual cadence: "Luna is a tuna, Luna is a tuna." I, reminiscent of my Davy Crockett chivalry, demanded that he leave Ricky alone. To my surprise, he backed off, and we left in peace. I thought, "Wow, he was scared of me." Ricky thanked me, and I felt as tough as a bulldog puppy after winning a battle by biting his littermate's ear. I even told my parents when I got home, and they seemed proud of me. This all made it clear to me: strength wins.
I came to understand that brawn, confidence, and wit would be what I needed to make it through hard situations like this. A couple of months later, however, I learned that I was wrong. On our march home from school, we were headed for Ricky's house. When we were about halfway there in a construction area for some new homes, we met Frankie Jones again. This time he ran up, pushed Ricky's shoulder, and started the familiar croon, "Luna is a tuna, Luna is a tuna, Luna is a tuna." This time I was ready.
Equipped with the assurance of past victories, I demanded that he stop and just leave Ricky alone. "Who's going to stop me?" he challenged. "I am," I said as I dropped my school books and slide trombone. Pushing my shoulder, he challenged, "You want a fight?" "Yeah," and I put up my skinny fist. Now, I had never been in a fight quite like this before. Sure, I had been beat up by my older brother a few hundred times, but even in that, we always had a determined sense of reserve not to leave marks or draw blood.
We both knew if either one of us really got hurt, the beating we would get later from Dad would be worse. This wasn't the case now. Suddenly, this big, strapping 11-year-old boy was shifting and ducking around me like Rocky Balboa. The alarm from the onlookers went out: "Fight!" Out of nowhere came a crowd of spectators, transforming this unfriendly squabble at a construction site into a Las Vegas-style heavyweight boxing tournament. The crowd jeered, "Hit him! Come on, fight! Do something!" Then it happened.
Frankie acted like he was going to hit me with his left fist, so I threw up a block, but as my attention was diverted to this punch, he was wrenching his body over and reaching way back, and suddenly, smack! With all Frankie's might, his big right fist connected under my left eye. Suddenly, everything went black and down I went, hitting the ground. As I came to, I saw Frankie standing over me yelling to his friend, "Hey, it worked!" as if they were practicing some kind of boxing moves.
I then looked to the crowd, and they were all still screaming, "Hit him! Hit him again! Hit him while he's down!" I started to cry, and Frankie looked to the crowd and told them he could not hit me while I was crying. He then looked at me and challenged me with something like, "Had enough wimp?" I whimpered out a, "Yes," and he left me alone. He walked away followed by a parade of cheers from his admiring public. Ricky and I hardly said a word to each other.
I went to his house for a while, then later I started my approximate three-mile walk to my house. Once home, in full Norman Rockwell fashion, my mother placed a steak on my eye, and my father inquisitively asked, "So, what does the other guy look like?" School was embarrassing. If the taunting was bad before, now, sporting my Class A shiner, I was everyone's target.
Once, at the water fountain, Frankie thought he would ensure his ascendancy and ordered me to move or he would complete my facelift, making me look like a raccoon. Demoralized, I just walked away. I was now the defeated. I saw that might and strength could not stop this foe. I wasn't a Christian yet, but something from within me cried to God for defense. I could not do it myself, and even if I felt it was ridiculous, I knew that what I really needed was an omnipotent defender.
Last Day of Sixth Grade It was now the last day of school, and not only that, it was the last day in the school building. After this year, we would all move on to the different junior high schools according to our local addresses. On this last day, the school had an annual picnic in which the whole sixth-grade class walked about two miles to the park. A few weeks before this, Ricky had shown me a strange little device he said he was carrying around to defend himself from stray dogs.
I knew he didn't really care about the dogs, so I challenged him. "What is that?" I asked. "It is called Mace. You spray it at an attacking dog, and it really burns the dog's eyes bad. After that, the dog will just run away and leave you alone." "Sounds pretty mean," I challenged. "No, it doesn't hurt them permanently, just burns real bad at first." I still wasn't comfortable with the idea, but I soon forgot about it.
Walk to the Park As we walked to the park, we endured a few tauntings from Frankie and the other bullies, and we wondered what the playground front lines would be like today. Pranks and tricks were common, and we were fearful that some joke might be played on us. So, putting our towels, lunches, and other belongings on the picnic tables, Ricky and I went to the far side of the park to play. A few hours later, we heard quite a commotion coming from the tables, and we wondered what in the world had happened.
It wasn't long until Mr. Sharps, our homeroom teacher, was calling for us with a pretty severe tone. We ran to see what the problem was, and there he was, holding Ricky's Mace spray in his hand. Looking at us with a wrinkled brow and tight lips, he stood there with Ricky's Mace in his hand and asked, "What's this?" Ricky's voice quivered as he squeaked out his reply, "It's a Mace squirter, Mr. Sharps." Holding it out to Ricky, Mr.
Sharps asked, "Why do you have a Mace squirter?" "My mom wanted me to have it to scare off the stray dogs. Sometimes they attack me when I'm walking home. But why do you ask? I had it put up. It was hidden. What happened?" Suddenly, Mr. Sharps' face sobered as he began to tell us what had happened. "Well, apparently," he said, motioning with his hand, "Frankie was messing with your boy's personal belongings. I reckon he was intending to do something mischievous.
Anyway, I guess while he was messing with Ricky's towel, this Mace squirter came rolling out. Inspecting it and staring right down the barrel of the squirter, he shot the thing right into his eyes. He then started crying and screaming. It sounded awful, so he took him to the hospital. He'll be okay, but it sure did hurt him." Ricky and I were dumbfounded. I slowly looked over to him, he slowly looked over to me, and then we both looked up to Mr.
Sharps, wondering how much trouble we were going to be in for this one. At that point, I saw it. Yes, it was there. Right to the far left side of his pursed-lip frown was an ever-so-slightly twisted wry grin. Then, with a little sparkle in his eyes, he told us to run along and go play. "And don't bring that thing around here anymore." Now, I obviously had a long way to go in learning how to be a peacemaker. The whole fight thing could have been avoided had I learned the way of Christ earlier on.
But somehow, this little incident tucked away in my memory came back to me and taught me a lesson. Retributive justice, just deserts, poetic justice—people have all kinds of names for stuff like this. But I knew then, even as an 11-year-old, way down deep, that my deliverance was the work of an omnipotent defender. My Defender Now, in the army, as I began to consider the idea of looking only to God as my defender in a real and practical way, this memory came to mind.
I pondered this as I read over the Apostle Paul's teaching to the Romans: "Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men. If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men. Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath. For it is written, 'Vengeance is mine. I will repay,' says the Lord. Therefore, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him a drink. For in so doing, you will heap coals of fire on his head.
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." Later, when my wife and I visited the concentration camps in Germany, we had already come to many of our non-resisting convictions. However, when we were there, walking about the remains and seeing the mountain of shoes, the eyeglasses, and the countless piles of luggage and personal belongings of the slain Jews, we were moved.
When we saw the pictures of the abuse and torture, and then walked right up to an oven actually used to burn the bodies of the Jews that were killed in the gas chambers, we rose up with indignation. When we read of Stalin's genocide, the many African massacres, and even the damage caused by the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we were moved to do something.
New Weapons When I consider conflict in a much deeper sense than my personal loss or childhood squabbles, when I thought of these Hitlers, Stalins, and now even this new foe, Saddam Hussein, I realized that quietly doing nothing was out of the question. In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul distinctly clarified the issue: "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood." This was clear to me.
What impressed me was that the verse did not stop with the mere statement, "We wrestle not." It went on to say that we do indeed wrestle, not in the flesh, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places (Ephesians 6:12). I had to ask myself if I really believed in those weapons and if I actually was willing to participate in this battle.
In another place, writing to the Corinthians, Paul distinguished between the battles of the world and the battles that Christians are to participate in, saying, "For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh; for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ" (2 Corinthians
10:3-7).
Those words still hit me strong today. On the one hand, Paul makes it very clear that we do not war after the flesh, and furthermore, that our weapons are not made out of things of this earth. But again, he does not leave us there. He challenged the Corinthians that they should still be fighting, only in a different and more powerful way. It is not cowardice that God desires. He wants us to fight and do battle. Again, it is the nature of the kingdom and the weapons of our warfare that have changed.
Real Captives I asked myself, "Am I, through the sword of the Spirit, casting down sinful and destructive imaginations? Am I appropriating these spiritual instruments of war in my own life and implementing the shield of faith and the helmet of salvation in reality? Am I truly employing the battle tactic of having my feet shod with the gospel of peace and taking every thought captive?" I knew that the armies of the world clearly understood what captives were.
At times throughout history, the conquering king even marched into the newly conquered city with a train of shackled prisoners behind him, showing everyone who was most powerful. Could I show the Lord a train of evil, lustful, prideful thoughts taken captive by the power of his Spirit? I pondered how these weapons Paul was talking about could be mightier than carnal instruments such as battleships and nuclear missiles. I felt I couldn't just give up the weapons of the world and be passive.
I must put on the weapons of God and arm myself with the weapons of prayer, fasting, and gospel preaching. The early Christians understood this type of battle. Tertullian spoke on the power given to the church through prayer. He said that prayer can be used to transform the weak, to restore the sick, to purge the possessed, to open prison bars, to loose the bonds of the innocent.
Likewise, prayer washes away faults, repels temptations, extinguishes persecutions, consoles the faint-spirited, cheers the high-spirited, escorts travelers, appeases waves, makes robbers stand aghast, nourishes the poor, governs the rich, upraises the fallen, arrests the falling, confirms the standing. Prayer is the wall of faith, her arms and missiles against the foe who keeps watch over us on all sides. And so never walk we unarmed. By day be we mindful of station, by night of vigil.
Under the arms of prayer, guard we the standard of our general, await we in prayer the angels' trump. Oh, how my heart still is encouraged today when I realize the resources that God has given his church. God is still teaching me how to use these weapons more and more. It is not enough to be non-resistant. I must engage in battle with the mighty weapons that God has charged me to use.