Stagging On

My introduction to 'stagging on' came on one of those nights you wouldn't send a dog out in. The time was early autumn, the place was Catterick area (a wonderful place of natural beauty situated in North Yorkshire), the occasion was 'basic training'. I was cold, tired and wanted to be warm, dry and in a warm bed having had a three-course meal.

We'd marched across the area, we'd done harbouring and snap ambushes and then been given a challenge to enter an area without detection or capture and finally at 02:00 we'd been told we could turn in for an 'early night'. I pulled the two hour slot that ran from 03:00. My task was to place myself at a point that afforded me a clear view of one site of our camp so that I could 'see' the enemy coming and challenge them and, if found to be 'naughty people' to raise the alarm and get everyone 'standing to'.

Yesterday we had lots of fun with Harold Camping and his exercise in failed mathematics that was the 'Rapture' and last night, after all the exertions and energy was expended at his expense, we needed to return to 'stagging on'.

Forget the cruel people who might call for understanding of those who act contrary to what the Bible says and yet vilified Camping, those who berated the man awfully and still call for special care of the mentally ill (and is he mentally ill or merely 'mistaken' on an extremely large and public scale?).

It is fair game to defend our pet causes and yet act disgracefully towards others and see nothing wrong in our acting as those we decry do! Forget the "This Wasn't the Day' brigade and realise that the diversion has now been passed and we need to return to our 'main task. which is:

BEING READY
One of the mil skills I learned was that we are most vulnerable after a 'contact' or a scare. Seeing nothing come of whatever it was causes us to drop our guards and then we are vulnerable. The Bible telles us (1 Thes 5)

"So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be be alert."

If we're not watching then we're not expecting something to happen - are we expecting the Lord to return? If you answer 'Yes' then I have to ask, "Are we ready"?

WATCHING
We stag on, looking out for any danger that might approach those whose lives we have responsibility for when we are on stag. if I fail to respond to a threat then I, and my comrades (AKA 'the family') might well perish. Ezekiel 3 tells us:

" I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. If I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, in order to save his life, that wicked person shall die ford his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, or from his wicked way, he shall die for his iniquity, but you will have delivered your soul. Again, if a righteous person turns from his righteousness and commits injustice, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die. Because you have not warned him, he shall die for his sin, and his righteous deeds that he has done shall not be remembered, but his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the righteous person not to sin, and he does not sin, he shall surely live, because he took warning, and you will have delivered your soul.”"

Stop watching and their blood is on your hands. Better to call wrong and ruin people's sleep than ignore a threat and cause them all to die (wise words from my, then, Colour Sergeant!).

KEEPING ON
Until the Lord returns, that what we are called to do. Sideshows, distractions and diversions will come, but we keep on following the orders and running the race until we reach the goal and make the prize our own (2Tim2):

"Endure suffering along with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.
Soldiers don’t get tied up in the affairs of civilian life, for then they cannot please the officer who enlisted them.
And athletes cannot win the prize unless they follow the rules."

And then we will see the glory of the Lord, for us, and those whom our watching and warning has saved.

Pax