I was in the United States Air Force for four years. When you enlist in the military they start you out in Basic Training. The purpose of Basic is to teach you how to listen and obey. In Air Force Basic they put you in groups of about fifty and you stay with the same guys for six weeks (this time frame may be different now). Together you learn how to march, be neat, study, follow orders exactly as they are given, etc. You do everything together.
I remember our first night together: they gave us five minutes to shave, shower, and be in bed. Can you imagine fifty guys all trying to shave (with a straight edge, some for the first time!), shower, and be in bed in five minutes?
They taught us how to make beds, hang our uniforms up in a certain way, fold our underwear, and place it in a drawer just the right way. In fact, we all had lockers and drawers and everything had to be arranged just so. Well, one day we had a “white glove” inspection. My T.I. (Training Instructor) found one speck of lint on my razor, looked up at me, and said, “Mac, you’re a slob! I want you to run around this barracks fifteen times saying `I am a pig; I am a pig’!”
Well, we went through six weeks of this stuff and finally graduated. After that, I went to Tech School to learn how to work on helicopters, graduated from there, then was a helicopter mechanic for the remainder of my time in the Air Force.
So, the purpose of boot camp was to teach me how to listen and how to obey. I learned that lesson and got along fine during my four years in the “Force.”
But ya know, something else happened to me in the Air Force: It was there that I began to learn how to listen to God and obey Him. Through other Christians, I met I discovered that God has written a Book for us to read and obey: The Bible. He talks to us through the Bible kind of like you talk to a friend when you write him/her a letter.
The Bible is God’s letter to us; it tells us how to know God and how to live for God. As we learn to do this, we’ll get along just fine in this life!
This is precisely what God told Joshua (Moses’ successor) as he was beginning his ministry of leading God’s people: “Study this Book of Instruction continually. Meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it. Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do.” (Joshua 1:8)
