The story of Private Donut

 
    I remember my first assignment as a drill sergeant in 1989, where I was assigned a class of new recruits at Ft Jackson, SC.  As was tradition, my trainees would soon receive nicknames based on their behavior or character traits.  Private "Donut", a short, pale and slightly chunky young man, received his name by returning for seconds in the breakfast chow line.  Although a polite young man, Private Donut allowed self-doubt to interfere with his ability to complete physically strenuous tasks.   While running, Private Donut was the first to fall out of formation.  While doing pushups, Private Donut was always the first to quit.  Although it was readily obvious this kid wasn’t the most gifted athlete in the class, it was just as obvious he was capable of accomplishing more than he was.   The first few days of basic training, I personally made sure that Private Donut was not allowed to quit when things got hard.  I pushed him extremely hard from the start.  Whenever he would try to quit, I would be on scene to make sure he didn’t.  When he would attempt to walk during a platoon run, I was right there to remind him how miserable life would become if he refused to get back into formation.  His fear of me far outweighed his natural desire to quit.  By the end of the first week I am quite sure Private Donut viewed me as his worst enemy.

    Each training cycle I would challenge all my trainees to a pushup contest. I was young and in very good shape back then and was doing over 95 "correct" pushups in the Army physical fitness test.  The first week of basic training I laid out a challenge for all my trainees.  If any of them could outperform me in pushups by the 6th week of basic training, I would personally treat them to lunch at the Burger King on post.  Now Army food in those days was barely palatable—so by comparison, Burger King was fine dining.  When the sixth week arrived, with it came the challenge.  One by one trainees would attempt to defeat their instructor hoping to be treated like royalty at Burger King.  Army Reservist PFC Moran, a college soccer player, was the first to accept the challenge.  PFC Moran was able to achieve 67 correct military pushups.   The next volunteer was a short, muscular kid from Georgia named Private Grambling.  Grambling heaved his way to 57 pushups.  After Grambling, I asked for the next volunteer and up popped Private Donut.  When this chubby kid raised his hand the other trainees began to laugh.  I asked Donut, amidst the laughter, if he was sure he wanted to accept my challenge?  As he nodded his head in affirmation, Private Donut dropped down into pushup position.  When I told him to begin, he started doing pushups.  By the time he had performed his 10th pushup, the laughter stopped.  By the time he reached his 20th, members of the platoon started rooting him on.  By the time Donut reached his 30^th, I also started cheering. To the disbelief of everyone, Private Donut wound up completing 62 pushups that day.  Unbeknownst to me and the rest of the platoon, each night after lights out, Private Donut had been sneaking into the latrine to work on his pushups hoping to show up his drill sergeant. 

    That day marked a turning point in the life of Private Donut and set an example for the rest of my platoon.  For the last few weeks of training If I noticed trainees not living up to their full potential, I would tell them, “If you were half as motivated as Private donut you wouldn’t be struggling so much”.  Following the platoon’s graduation ceremony I was approached by Private Donut who wanted to introduce me to his parents.  He grinned from ear to ear as I informed his parents that their son was one of the most motivated young men I had ever met and how over the course of 8 weeks he had developed into an outstanding soldier that I would be honored to serve with.  Private Donut became a very good soldier and went on to serve honorably in desert storm. 

    How many of us live our lives like that?  Allowing our own insecurities to limit us in what astounding accomplishments we are capable of achieving through our relationship with Christ.  We believe the lie that we are not valuable or worthy of anything great.  The reality however, is that we are princes and princesses in God’s kingdom.  We are joint heirs with Christ!  Are you currently living a life of royalty?  Are you aware of how much God really loves you?  Are you allowing insecurities or fear to prevent you from dreaming big?  A good friend of mine once posed the question, “What would you do if you had all the courage in the world?  If finances were not a hindrance, and you knew you were destined to succeed –what would you do?  How would you live your life differently?” Of all people, Christ followers should dream big. As Christians we should view ourselves through the eyes of God and refuse to see anything different. How many times in the Bible did God use “small people” to accomplish big things?  With God's help, a young teenager named David defeated a giant warrior, a stammering fugitive named Moses was used to deliver the Jewish people from the captivity of Egypt, and a young judge named Gideon defeated an army of more than a hundred thousand with only 300 men.  You must understand that the God we serve is a limit breaker.  Let your mind be open to receiving new ideas and challenges while simultaneously viewing yourself as a child of the almighty creator.  Give yourself permission to dream big.  And in so doing, allow your influence to burst forth and impact those around you. If Private Donut can do it, so can you!      

 

Proverbs 29:18 “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”

 

Romans 8:17 “Now if we are children, then we are heirs--heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory” 

 

Romans 12:2  “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

RUNNING THE RACE SET BEFORE US

   Often times the person that we desire to be is far different than who we actually are (at least based on how we live our lives).   I recently had a woman, who had read one of my facebook posts, message me about how her marriage was crumbling. Her husband who had always been active in their church had abandoned her and her children and was living with another woman. He was also frequenting strip clubs and had become an alcoholic. She wrote me and said that she (along with her friends and family) were left bewildered as this man, they all “thought they knew” was living a life completely contrary to the beliefs that he had always espoused. Although not always as overt as this ladies story--many of us tend to compartmentalize our lives when it pertains to our relationship with God. We all have areas that we either keep away from God or refuse to see or confront in our own lives. 

   While at an Army Reserve Training Course over the last two weeks, I feel  God has given me some insight into this very topic. At this school that I attended, we had just completed 12 hours of training exercises and had gotten very little sleep the night prior. The next day after running around on another mock training mission--we got ready to go on a 7 mile tactical road march. Now in the Army you are generally carrying between 50 and 75 lbs of equipment in your rucksack (back pack) in addition to your uniform and rifle. The temperature that afternoon also added to the discomfort as it was an almost unbearably humid 92 degrees (97 degrees with the heat index). Within the first mile and a half of the march we had a few soldiers already falling behind the formation. As the march wore on, we came to a large hill;  my legs were burning, my lower back was aching and I was sweating so much that my uniform was completely saturated like I had just gotten out of a swimming pool. At this point my mind started giving me reasons to quit. First off, I was the oldest guy in this class at almost 48 years old.  I was already in the Army before most of these soldiers were even born! I was at least 20 years older than half of the students that I was in class with and my mind kept giving me reasons to quit (or at least to fall behind). Instead of allowing myself to justify quitting however, I focused on staying within the formation regardless of what the terrain looked like. I knew that the battle was in my mind and I refused to quit on myself. You see our bodies are capable of accomplishing much more than our minds can conceive. 

    I thought as I finished the road march that day--how many of us do the same thing in our spiritual walk?  We justify habits and behaviors in our lives that don’t line up with what we say we believe and we let our mind tell our spirit that it's human nature.  We refuse to look at these areas that are not in synch with who God made us to be.  We get comfortable in our own sin and disobedience by using various excuses.  Those excuses include,  "Everybody is doing it", or "My sin was someone elses fault."  Instead of making the painful choice to "Take up our cross and follow Christ daily"--we hide those areas that don't line up with what we say we believe, or worse yet, we twist scripture in an attempt to vindicate our disobedience.  It's not that Christianity is about a bunch of rules and restrictions, our Heavenly Father wants the best for us. Just like I establish boundaries for my children so that they might grow up to have successful, joyful lives--God wants the same for us.  Often we only give God a small percentage of our heart when what he desires is all of it.  How would you feel in a marriage relationship if your spouse only gave you a percentage of their heart? Or a percentage of their devotion? Jesus said the greatest commandment was to love the Lord with "ALL your heart, soul, strength, and mind". I have purposed in my life to serve Jesus “whole heartedly“. No area in my heart is off limits to God because you see, our “spirit” is also able to accomplish much more than our minds can conceive. With all my heart I want to put aside all excuses and pursue God’s heart with everything in me.  I want people to look at me and see that in every way my actions line up with who I state that I am. I want the man I desire to be and who I actually am to be in synch as I walk out who God created me to be

　

Hebrews 12:1-2 “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

The movie "42" and "turning the other cheek."

I recently saw the movie “42” about baseball legend Jackie Robinson.  This movie especially impacted me as my grandfather was major league pitcher Robert “Lefty” Bob Logan who played for the Cincinnati Reds as well as the Chicago Cubs.  Although Jackie Robinson’s career began after my grandfather had already retired—Jackie Robinson was always one of Grandpa Logan’s favorite players.  Both my Grandfather Bob and Grandmother Evelyn Logan were two of the biggest influences on my faith in Christ.  One thing that impacted me in that movie was the concept of turning the other cheek.  In the movie, Jackie was told by the Dodgers General Manager Branch Rickey that Branch was looking for a man “with guts enough not to fight back”.  The film accurately depicted Branch Rickey’s commitment to following Christ.  The General Manager of the Dodgers sincerely felt like it was God’s will that he help integrate baseball and subsequently impact the moral fiber of the nation.  One thing not addressed in the movie, however, was Jackie Robinson’s similar deep and abiding faith in Jesus Christ.  Throughout the movie Robinson resisted the temptation to defend himself or fight back.  Because of how Jackie Robinson continued to react in a “Christ like” way—his courage and discipline completely changed major league baseball (and impacted the society’s view on racism as well).    
    One of the hardest things to learn in following Jesus, are the concepts of  “dying to self” and “loving your enemies”.  One thing that I feel God has been teaching me lately is the importance of “dying to self”.  The dead have no rights and find no need to defend themselves.  When I started coming to the realization of what it really meant to die to self, it became easier (although still not easy) to be kind to those who were being unkind to me.  Jesus is glorified when we begin to live in that reality though because it is so contrary to the way that we are wired.  It is a natural human reaction when someone personally attacks us (whether emotionally or physically) to fight back.  Now I am not in ANY way advocating anyone to stay in a physically abusive relationship.  What I am saying however is that when we react with kindness to those who are being vicious to us —that is when people will see Christ being active in our lives.  For those of us who have had to process through the pain and rejection of divorce this can be a hard road to travel.  I recently spoke to a church friend about her mistreatment at the hands of her ex-husband.  She is a Christian and was struggling with how to react towards her ex.  Her ex husband had been very cruel, manipulative and accusing when dealing with her.  He had slandered her to both family friends as well as to their children.  It was her natural tendency to go on the attack whenever she had to interact with him.  She would feel the desire to lash out, retaliate, threaten, and defend herself against his verbal attacks and accusations.  My counsel to her was simply to “be kind” in any and all interactions with him.  If he got verbally abusive on the phone, I told her she should end the call.  But I encouraged her that under no circumstances should she allow herself to get baited into responding on his level.  Did her ex husband deserve her kindness?  Absolutely not!  This guy was being a complete jerk.  But in showing kindness instead of venom she was taking the moral high ground and honoring God.  Now this does not mean we have no boundaries when dealing with abusive people.  What it does mean is we have decided to react in ways that glorify God and show kindness to those who are undeserving (realizing that we all are undeserving of God’s kindness and mercy). When we decide to follow Christ, we give up our rights to retaliate in order to defend our own dignity.  When we defend our honor by retaliating against those who hurl insults our way—we minimize the reality of Christ in our lives.  Black athletes during the civil rights era understood this concept.  People like Jackie Robinson knew that if they retaliated it would simply give justification to their attackers that they were correct in their false assumptions.  Instead, like Jesus, Jackie showed through his gentle dignity that his confidence and esteem came from the Lord.  He had no need to defend himself as God was his defender.  Through his actions and the actions of other great men and women of that era, racial barriers began to erode and both Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickie began to see the beginnings of racial reconciliation and healing in the nation.  I pray that God will continue to allow me to learn how to “turn the other cheek” in the midst of conflict so that I can become more like the one I serve.

Matthew 5:38-48, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.  And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.  And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.  You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”