John 15:12-13 “My commandment is this: Love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down your life for your friends.”
That was Jesus speaking. He gave his life for you and me. He says that it is the last act of love. This makes sense, because after you give up your life, you have nothing left to give.
We all belong to the Brotherhood of our neighbor or to the Brotherhood of our neighbors. Under that great umbrella we also belong to our own separate Communities. Consider which community you may belong to.
*Wife or husband: a fairly large community
*A particular religious leaning – smaller, but still a large community
*Auto Mechanics and Teachers – still smaller, but part of the Occupational Community
*CEO’s – a considerably smaller community
*The NFL quarterback: a very, very small community
I believe that the community we walk in as sincere Christians is led by God through a lifetime of influence and prayer. If that’s true, as a Christian, you’re probably in the career groove that God wants you to be in, although I also recognize that many people are working VERY out of their groove because God is not going to rob them or the people who hired them. The free will. . As such, we all know people who seem to be constantly struggling and really should just move on and find something else to do.
Each person’s place in this world is equally important in God’s eyes, but as earthling mothers we like to make certain roles more important than others. A good example would be sports figures who earn an exorbitant amount of money, while many soldiers feel compelled to fight the war to pay their bills. Who is more important?
Consider the underpaid humanitarian who works for an organization like La Puente, whose mission is to provide emergency shelter, food assistance, transitional housing, self-sufficiency services, homelessness prevention, community services, and job training for the homeless and others. members of the community in crisis. Is that person any less important than the senior pastor of an American megachurch whose average salary is $140,000? From a biblical perspective, the answer is no. They are of equal importance in the eyes of God, and the fruit they produce should reflect the heart of God. But, we have a tendency to give more value and prestige to the Pastor. This is great food for thought and an article for another day, but it is within that context that I would like to introduce two friends who have taken career paths that most people can only imagine.
We can probably agree that as a member of their community, you have the benefit of knowing their unique environment, nuances, and characteristics. You can look at people within your community who are amazingly talented and others who really need to go find another community to hang out with.
One of the most exciting communities I know of is the one that has these people working in it.
*All 700,000 sworn police officers in the United States.
*The 1,103,300 firefighters in the United States.
*The 840,000 EMS employees in the United States.
*The 2.2 million active duty and reserve personnel in the US Armed Forces.
Let’s further reduce this Community. Those within these Communities who habitually deal with violence have had a front row seat to see the best and worst of human behavior. Sometimes, without knowing it, they have seen how the world of good and evil manifests itself in a human fight. This is the stuff of God and Satan.
Now, let’s further narrow down this community. Within THAT group are exceptionally skilled specialists who have studied their craft with excellence and under great rigor have displayed incredible character, integrity, leadership and courage. It is within this very, very small Community that I introduce several of my friends. The week of Christmas 2012, I reconnected with 2 guys I hadn’t seen in quite some time.
On the cold, gray December morning, as I walked into the coffee shop where we had agreed to meet, I was thinking of my former criminal justice colleague with whom I had shared the stage at conferences and seminars, shared the classroom as a fellow instructor. and shared meals full of laughter. He was a great and respected lawman with a dry and politically incorrect sense of humor. We lost contact with each other and reconnected through Facebook. It had been about 8 years since I had seen him. When I lost my hand in his when we greeted each other, I was reminded of one of the reasons I liked him and why criminals feared him.
As we warmly reminisced, I couldn’t help but think that he hadn’t changed that much. He looked the same. He spoke the same. But something was different and he couldn’t identify it. He seemed wiser, more mature and sure of himself. When we caught up on each other’s lives, he revealed that during our 8-year separation he had suffered a minor stroke, experienced a life-threatening illness of his and a separate illness: his kidneys had failed. His wife saved his life by donating one of his kidneys. He spoke of these things rather in fact. He didn’t complain. He did not present himself as an unfortunate victim of life’s circumstances.
That’s what was different. She had not only experienced life on the edge as a professional, but had also seen it invade her personal life. These things will change a person. He could have retired due to the medical problems he had experienced, but he chose to continue serving law enforcement in an administrative capacity.
He eventually retired, and surprisingly, it wasn’t medical challenges that pushed him into early retirement. Politics came in the form of a new and seemingly incompetent Sheriff who had a strange ax to grind. My friend got tired of being one of the whetstones. Although he was still relatively young, he was vested in his retirement pension plan and, along with a verified medical disability, he decided to retire. He is now active in a dog rescue organization and he loves it. It was a great moment of fellowship with an old friend. It was good to see him in peace.
As I left for my next appointment, I wondered how much the stress of law enforcement had contributed to her medical problems.
An hour later I pulled into a hospital parking lot. I was there to visit an old friend from high school who is now a disabled veterinarian. He served in the 101st Airborne Division, the “Screaming Eagles,” a US Army modular light infantry division trained for air assault operations. He was in Iraq One and as a member of the sniper-trained Task Force 112 Special Operations Development Team, he had seen his fair share of action from him. The day before I saw him in his hospital bed, he had undergone surgery to fuse his lower back which had been damaged when he crashed into the side of a building during a night parachute drop. . This would be his fourth surgery to correct the damage and mitigate the horrible pain he often experienced over the years as a result of his injuries.
As we visited him, I was impressed that although he admitted that he was in severe pain, he did not complain. The painkillers the hospital had prescribed had little effect, but he never missed a beat. He impressively fired off one-liners into the conversation between his wife and me as he provided a hilarious commentary on his surgery and hospital food.
This had been a nasty injury. He had previously endured four surgeries and at different times had seen him in a wheelchair or using walkers, crutches and canes. He had chronic pain for many years.
Several weeks after I saw him in the hospital and had some time to recover from surgery, we met for lunch. It was good to see him walk without help. Over lunch we talked about some of the unexpected things that come up in life. His injuries had led to alcohol abuse, which resulted in chemical dependency issues, which in turn affected his marriage, as he tried to deal with chronic pain, unemployment and multiple doctors.
He didn’t expect his life to be like this.
Still married, today he is sober and in recovery. He is also active in helping others who might be experiencing similar challenges. He participates in several groups and has started one himself. He has a wealth of wisdom, knowledge, and experience to share with others. And ironically, he’s one of the funniest guys I know.
The circumstances I have just described would destroy most people. What I admire and respect about these two guys is that they faced adversity head-on and kept going. They sought to make the best of what was presented to them. Although they have achieved incredible feats, they remain humble, but still achieve excellence. Despite the fact that most of his would-be teammates will never accept many of his actions, they still show respect for everyone. They are not full of themselves. They have retained all the traits that made them so good at what they did back then; they are doing now and will do in the future. In a word, they are authentic. The royal deal.
That’s how Jesus is. God too.
Contrast this with the latest person of the week, the next big egotistical tech innovator, or the flamboyant major league sports figure who wins mega-millions.
Many years ago I worked with an officer named Bob. Although we did not work for the same department, we did work in the same jurisdiction and shared some experiences together professionally. Eventually he took a position in another department. Bob drowned during a rescue attempt in which he was trying to save a family stranded on the roof of their car during a flash flood. Officers who attended the funeral told me that when his body was recovered, he was still clinging to the boy he tried to save. This would not be the last officer he knew that he would make the ultimate sacrifice.
The vast majority of men and women who have worked in these professions do so at the risk of losing their livelihoods, their minds, their limbs, or their lives. They don’t obsess over it. They recognize the risks and get the job done.
Among them walk unsung heroes, ordinary like the boys I visited on that sad December day, who have no idea of the impact they have had on people’s lives or the ripple effect of their actions. Others like them have had to make major and unexpected life adjustments to realign what they hoped and imagined their life would be like.
The people who belong to this small Community did not become part of it for money, power, fame or glory. If you ask them, they might give you several reasons why they joined. But if you look under the covers, more often than you think, you will probably find There is no greater love.
No greater love is to sacrifice what you might treasure for the sake of another, and by doing so you might bring them closer to the Kingdom of God.