Don't Waste Your Life

So I've been reading this book by John Piper off and on for a while. It's called "don't waste your life". It's a good read if you are interested in being convicted. Really makes you look at where you put value. Anyway, in Chapter 7, Piper relates a story from a book called Flags Of Our Fathers by James Bradley. This book is about the battle for Iwo Jima in World War II. Apparently it has recently been made into a movie as well (which I just found out from Google). James' father, John Bradley was one of the six men who raised the flag in that famous photo:


So here is an excerpt that I will type out. It is from page 188 of Bradley's book. It's a little graphic, so I am cautioning you now if you are squeamish.

As rainy morning wore into afternoon and the fighting bogged down, the Marines continued to take casualties. Often it was the corpsmen (medics) themselves who died as they tried to preserve life. William Hoopes of Chattanooga was crouching beside a medic named Kelly, who put his head above a protective ridge and placed binoculars to his eyes -- just for an instant -- to spot a sniper who was peppering his area. In that instant the sniper shot him through the Adam's apple. Hoopes, a pharmacist's mate himself, struggled frantically to save his friend. "I took my forceps and reached into his neck to grasp the artery and pinch it off," Hoopes recalled. "His blood was spurting. He had no speech but his eyes were on me. He knew I was trying to save his life. I tried everything in the world. I couldn't do it. I tried. The blood was so slippery, I couldn't get the artery. I was trying so hard. And all the while he just looked at me. He looked directly into my face. The last thing he did as the blood spurts became less and less was to pat me on the arm as if to say, 'That's all right.' Then he died."


Then Piper goes on to say:
In this heart-breaking moment I want to be Hoopes and I want to be Kelly. I want to be able to say to suffering and perishing people, "I tried everything in the world....I was trying so hard." And I want to be able to say to those around me when I die, "It's all right. To live is Christ, and to die is gain."

My comments:
Are we really so comfortable in our non-wartime lives that we forget that folks are supposed to be drawn to Christ by how we live? When was the last time someone asked you about "the reason for the hope that is in you"? (1 Peter 3:15)

Piper continues:
"Why don't people ask us about our hope? The answer is probably that we look as if we hope in the same things they do. Our lives don't look like they are on the Calvary road, stripped down for sacrificial love, serving others with the sweet assurance that we don't need to be rewarded in this life."

Me again:
I know that there are many times lately that it would be difficult to tell the difference between me and my non-believing neighbors. Am I just holding on to my salvation as a get out of hell free card? Do I truly reflect Christ to those who I interact with? Can they tell that I am a Christian?

That is enough to chew on for a while. I am such a baby Christian most of the time. This is the stuff of true living. Putting away the old man and putting on the new. Striving to become more like Christ. It seems so easy and so impossible at the same time.