A Ramble About Self-Pity

I recently watched “G.I. Jane” all the way through. I attempted it once years ago when a buddy of mine and I rented the videotape from Blockbuster (I did say it was years ago), but we got stopped about halfway through, although I don't now remember why. All things considered, I actually enjoyed it. Demi Moore did a great job (in my humble opinion), and I always like Viggo Mortensen. He's a great diverse actor.

For those who don't know, “G.I. Jane” is a movie about a woman who becomes part of a special pilot program for the US Navy to integrate women into combat roles. As part of a scheme to have the first test case fail, the senior members of the Department of the Navy choose to accept a woman into SEAL CRT training, assuming she won't last the first week because it has a 60% dropout rate as it stands (I think the movie quoted the figure a little low. My understanding of SEAL training is that it is much higher, 70-80%.) What they don't count on is the insistence of the woman on no double standards, she competes with the same rules as the men, and that the woman in question refuses to give up and quit. She eventually wins the respect of her hostile male instructors and crewmates and makes it through.

As I watched it through the first time, I kept feeling like I needed to understand something from it. Maybe the Lord doesn't use movies and TV shows to get points across to you, but I'm weird that way. After I finished watching it, I knew there was a lesson I was supposed to get from it, but I couldn't quite put it into words. I felt like I was missing something, so I asked my wife to watch it with me so that I could get her input on it. She enjoyed it too.

I've heard and seen a number of things on Navy SEAL training. I know enough to know I'd never make it through it even on my ridiculously best day. The first week, Hell week, is notoriously, insanely difficult. The candidates aren't allowed to sleep but for a couple of hours the entire week. They're beaten, punished, pushed, shot at, nearly drowned, and frozen. They're made to run obstacle courses with live ammunition and explosives going off around them (yes, people have been killed during SEAL training). They're made to stay awake writing legible essays while listening to music intended to make them fall asleep and punished if their eyes close (remember, they haven't slept in days). The rest of the three months of training isn't much better. It's all done to give them a realistic taste of what it means to be a Navy SEAL and what they can expect in terms of the kinds of missions they're called on to carry out.

The person who goes into it believing that he's going to breeze right through or is only focused on how cool it's going to be to be a SEAL is the person that rings the bell and quits within the first week, and the instructors are happy to have him leave. These instructors are not encouraging. They are not friendly. They are not helpful. They are not trying to get everyone, or even anyone through the course. They are gleeful when someone quits on the first day, because this is the person they don't want as a SEAL. They know that they can't rely on this kind of a person in the extreme conditions of SEAL operations, and they certainly don't want to have to find out that he's going to tuck tail and run when they're under fire.

There's a free verse poem by Emerson that the Command Master Sergeant quotes at the beginning of the movie and you see it again at the very end. It goes something like, “I never saw a wild thing feel sorry for itself. A bird will freeze and fall down to the ground dead without ever feeling sorry for itself.” His point in quoting this, I believe, was that no one could be a SEAL who felt sorry for himself. It was when a person gave in to their self-pity and began feeling sorry for themselves that they went into the downward spiral and quit the program. It is also the person who begins to feel sorry for himself that drags his teammates with him. The person who feels sorry for themselves can't be trusted to see an operation through to its success.

Self-pity also ruins disciples of Jesus Christ. Like any other focus on one's self it blinds the person to Jesus Christ and begins to wither him away from His uncreated energies. It sets the disciple up to quit when things get difficult, and like the Navy SEAL, things are supposed to be difficult for the disciple of Jesus Christ. We are supposed to suffer with Him. We are supposed to be pounded on, punished, rejected, laughed at, and ridiculed by those who aren't. Jesus said as much. It becomes questionable when a disciple isn't treated badly for following Christ. He didn't sugarcoat it. In fact, He was so explicit at times that many of His disciples turned away from Him and stopped following Him, ringing the bell so to speak. Those who didn't, but went on to carry the gospel throughout the known world almost to a man died for it in grotesque ways. St. John wasn't martyred, but it wasn't for lack of trying. They were beaten, stoned, thrown into prison, crucified, beheaded, thrown to lions as a spectator sport, burned like living torches, and underwent other more imaginative tortures. According to ancient writings and eyewitnesses, they did it with songs, praises, and prayers on their lips.

It does no good for the Christian to complain about his suffering. He or she has chosen to follow Jesus Christ. Following Jesus Christ assumes that you will suffer as He suffered. Jesus Himself made no attempt to hide this fact and stated it openly and plainly. He spoke no parable when describing it. When you choose Jesus Christ you choose to pick up the cross, the most painful and humiliating death known, and live as He did.

Anyone who attempts to convince you that Christianity or being a disciple of Jesus is otherwise or means something else has no idea what he's talking about. Anyone who doesn't explain this when evangelizing or trying to disciple new converts is not preaching Jesus but his own misguided error. You cannot attain to the resurrection without the suffering and death of the cross. This is the first and most important principle of discipleship.

This suffering can and will take many different forms as you come under attack from visible and invisible opponents. It may be obvious that you are suffering because of your discipleship. This is the easiest kind of suffering to take. But the more common is when it is less obvious. This is when suffering happens to you that doesn't appear to be directly related to your faith in Christ, or doesn't appear to be because someone is in direct opposition to your faith in Christ. You may suffer because of choices you've made because of your faith. You and those around you may suffer because of unseen enemies playing havoc with your lives to distract you and pull you away from your pursuit of Christ because of the pain the suffering causes. They do not stop. Ever. God pulls them off for a little while when they get to be more than you can handle, but He doesn't keep them off of you forever. That would be counter-productive to His purposes for you.

Suffering itself isn't even the issue. It's our aversion to suffering and attachment to pleasure, or conversely the attachment to suffering and aversion to pleasure, which becomes the problem. Suffering is a normal part of life, and doubly so for the disciple of Jesus Christ. It is what we sign up for. To be averse to it, to complain about it, to run from it does absolutely no good, and can do the greater harm to us and those around us as we avoid obedience to Christ for fear of it. At the same time, inviting suffering or deliberately causing it isn't good either. It will come of its own accord willingly and without effort. Navy SEALs endure immense suffering in order to accomplish their mission objectives, but they don't deliberately seek it when they don't have to. Neither should we. I should here add that pleasure is also a part of life, and it will come of its own accord as well if we are able to recognize it. Deliberately attempting to remain in or remain away from either condition is an extreme which should probably be avoided by Christ's disciples.

Suffering is necessary for the Christian to progress in his discipleship as he learns to identify with Christ through his suffering. Self will rebel hard against it. This is normal. You will grow angry, depressed, resentful, and bitter if you do not accept and hold on to this understanding that identification with Christ through the sufferings that are heaped upon you involuntarily are there to bring you closer to Him and not farther from. Self-indulgence and pleasure-seeking are counter-productive to following Jesus Christ and can open bad gateways to falling away from Him little by little until you and He don't know each other anymore. The mentality which we must maintain is to expect suffering, come to terms with it, and just push through towards Jesus Christ.

SEALS train the way they do because the kind of suffering they experience during their training is at least comparable to what they will experience on their operations, and, like Jesus, their instructors don't hide the suffering from them. They explain it to them as realistically as possible. Jesus Himself gave us the example of His own life and His own torturous death on the cross to contemplate in no uncertain terms. Like the SEALS, we must go into it expecting that suffering is what we signed up for and not be surprised when it comes. There is no such thing as a Navy SEAL who doesn't suffer in some way during his training and during his field operations. In the same way, there's no such thing as a disciple of Jesus Christ who doesn't suffer throughout his or her life just as He did. It's either voluntary or not, but the suffering will be there to mark the disciple. Those who do not suffer, do not follow Christ.