When David killed the giant Goliath, he did it as a man who, even if he feared the giant, he feared his God more. When John Smith stepped over the gangplank at Jamestown, he was already prepared to fight the Indians, when Fransisco de Pizarro stepped over the line to go to "Peru and its riches" he was not, for the first time, discovering what it was to be a man, neither were the men at the Alamo making their first hard decision when they crossed the famous Line in the Sand.
Men are not made on the field of the great battles, they are crafted in the darkness of the forests during the skirmishes. No man would ever be asked to rush a breach if he has not first proven that he will obey when told to carry a water pail.
God has told us what he wants form a man, Micha 6:8 says
Love justice, love mercy, be humble, can it be said any plainer than that?
How do we become like them? We must train like them. The men that hit the beaches of Normandy on D-Day did not suddenly show up at the field of battle, they trained for hours and hours with live ammunition, running up bluffs, doing push ups, and running laps. It was when they felt they could do no more, and yet picked themselves up for one more push up, one more jumping jack, one more blow at the bag, that they knew that hate were ready.
John Smith was a man such as the world had never seen, yet I pray will someday see again. He was a man who was had on himself, a man who forced himself. When he was a boy, he decided he needed to get away from all the other young men his age so he went into the woods and built himself a tree house, and lived in the woods, reading his books, shooting his pistols at trees, and riding his horse with his lance, training for a life of adventures such as the annals of history shall never again see.
The training must be harder than the real thing. The sharpest swords are made in the hottest fires.
Fransisco de Pizarro was the man who eventually brought down the great Incan nation in Peru. He was the man who did not seem destined for a great life. He was the man that, at thirty-three, was a little illiterate goat-herd with black teeth on the hills of Truxilo, a little poor decrepit man who had lived a hard life, and yet, when the call came for conquest, it did not come to the princes who sat in fine houses, ate fine food, and slept in soft beds, it came to the man that had lived a hard life, in preparation for a great life.
David did not "appear" on the field of battle that day. He was a boy, as John Blake, a colonel in the Green Beret said "who was bored to death, out in the field, driving himself insane playing praises to God on his harp, slinging rocks, out of his mind with boredom, and killing the occasional bear or lion who came by, but when the time came, he had pushed himself to such an extent that God was able to use him, and that is what we need to do."
So John Smith was made as a boy, shooting at trees, and denying himself comfort, George Washington was made as a boy surveyor, a hard life of rain, bad food, and cold. If you would become a man, you must be hard on yourself. John the Baptist's parents took him into the wilderness for many years. And so, train mentally, train physically, train emotionally, until, when you are called to charge the breech, you have carried so many water buckets, it is old hat to you to follow orders, and to charge into the the hail of shot and shell, with your saber turning in air, sabering a gunner there, climbing up the loose stones, putting your training to use, doing the maneuvers the same way you have done them five hundred times throughout your life, and then, suddenly, you stand at the top, bathed in perspiration, but you have conquered through Christ's strength, but to reach the top, you must remember, that the goals you set for tomorrow will determine who you are today. In closing, allow me to show a video clip by Paul Washer.
Through His Strength We Will Conquer,
Andrew C. Abbott
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