Get In And Drive!

I was listening to one of my favorite radio preachers this morning (during a commute from hell) and he shared a scene from the movie Blackhawk Down.

An army ranger colonel is trying to lead a convoy to safety amid a firestorm of enemy fire.  He stops the convoy to retrieve some wounded soldiers.  He drags a dead soldier out of the driver's seat of a jeep and turns to a sergeant standing near by. 

"Get in and drive" says the colonel.  "But colonel, I've been shot" stammers the sergeant.  "We've all been shot - get in and drive!" yells the colonel.

The point of the preacher was, of course, that in the process of living we have all been shot - most of us repeatedly.  I find that this is so very true.  We are a world of the walking wounded.  Some of us "get in and drive" and others sit down by the side of the road and give up.  Every time I see the public out-pouring of support for some small child suffering from (put your favorite disease, condition or traumatic event here) all I can think about are the thousands of children suffering from the same thing in total obscurity.

I don't know why it is that some of us can keep putting one foot in front of the other while some curl into a ball and hide under a rock.  I have hidden under a rock on occasion but God keeps gently prodding me until I get back on my feet and start moving again.  I know that to live life engaged, interactive and relational is to brave a hail storm of bullets.  Unless we completely isolate ourselves from the world (and especially from people) we are going to get shot at and occasionally wounded.

Ultimately it is what you do after getting shot that matters the most.

Get in and drive!