To save a life.

So recently I watched the movie 'The Hurt Locker'.

It was a very, very good movie. It's the story of a squad of bomb-removal specialists in the US Army in Iraq. These are the guys who go out onto the field to disarm booby-trapped cars, tripwires, landmines, IED explosives, basically anything that goes boom. Surrounded by people in the middle of cities where anyone could pull out their cell-phone and detonate the explosive you're trying to disarm, an explosive which will most certainly end your life, you can imagine the stress and adrenaline levels going through the roof on such missions.

Throughout the whole movie you watch as this bomb squad survives the most perilous situations, skating through by the skin of their teeth at times. You also see how they cope with the stress back at base camp.

These squads stay out on the field for 1 year then are rotated out and sent back to America to resume their "normal life."

At the end of this movie, the main star is in a Costco-esque grocery store, and he's shopping with his wife and kid. Before they're about to leave the wife asks him if he can get some cereal. He goes to the cereal aisle, and you see him standing there with an aisle of cereal in front of him, in perfect order, with probably 100 different kinds of cereal. And he just stands there and shakes his head. The contrast between his life in the field, and his life at home is resoundingly apparent. It causes the mind to wonder at the sheer hollowness of existence for the average American; because it causes you to compare this grocery-outlet lifestyle with the life-saving, life-endangered, action-packed, never-know-if-you'll-live-through-the-day lifestyle of his time in the bomb squad.

Humorously enough, I found myself connecting with the main character on a personal level. Because while I clearly do not risk my life in a tangible way, the willingness to sacrifice is still there for both of us. We are both in the business of saving lives. Just in two very different ways.

And that made me ponder about my life in ministry, and everything I give up for the cause, and what my life would be like if I was removed from it.

In one of the scenes, after a particularly harrowing feat of heroism, the main character goes into the shower with all his clothes on and just turns on the water to full blast and then sinks slowly to the floor and starts crying. I can identify with that! I've been there myself!

This life I live in absolute pursuit of everything God is calling me towards is hard, it's really freaking hard, and the idea of giving up usually pops up a couple times a week. But I wonder if I really did ever give up, would I find myself standing in the middle of a giant warehouse full of useless stuff that will ultimate become nothing more than ashes and dust in the long run, and realize how ridiculously hollow and pointless my life would be without Christ?