Adapt, Improvise and Overcome

“He who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death….I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it… I will give authority over the nations….I will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels…I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will he leave it. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God; I will also write on him my new name…I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat with my Father on his throne…”
(Rev 2:11,17,26, 3:5,12,21)

The Bible is filled with scripture describing overcoming struggle (consider the fact that the very name of God’s chosen nation is Israel which means “struggles with God”). We are familiar with the idea that our lives are full of struggle. Some would even say that it is struggle that makes life worthwhile. Consider James’ words on this topic,

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete not lacking anything.”

The Apostle Paul expounds the benefits of our fight with struggles in life in Romans 5

“Not only so but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.”

There is a time honored saying in the Marines, “Improvise, Adapt, and Overcome.” It is something that Marines are supposed to do. It is another way of saying that failure is not an option; you must deal with any situation.

Imagine yourself an 18 year old at Marine Corps Boot Camp. You forget to bring your camouflage face paint to field training. There is no way you can hike the 10 miles back to your barracks and back in time to get it, besides which you dare not leave the immediate area for fear of being shot on site or worse having a drill instructor catch you (you are never allowed to go anywhere without permission during the entire 3 months). You know that without something on your face you will be more easily seen, not to mention it will be obvious to your drill instructor that you have forgotten your face paint. If he finds out that you disobeyed that direct order you know that he will “wear you out” a term used to describe the physical exercise intended for punishment (akin to “drop and give me 20! Only much more severe and painful than a simple 20 pushups). Okay, so most people would simply ask to borrow a friend’s kit. For the sake of my example let’s say you forget to ask and you decide that you are going to make some face paint using mud. You pour some water on the ground and mix it with the dirt. You apply the mixture liberally to your face. Seconds later you are running to get into rank and file formation to receive the day’s instructions.

There you are, standing in formation, the drill instructor is inspecting the camouflage face paint of each recruit. The drill instructor passes you and stops dead. A smile breaks out on his face that shows his sadistic delight and you fear that you will soon be ‘making a puddle’ (a term used to describe the amount of sweat you will cause while you are being “worn out”). He grabs you by the sleeve and drags you to the front of the platoon. He calls the platoon’s attention to you and now you are really embarrassed.

The drill instructor addresses the platoon, “I want all of you to look at this recruit. He has a terrific lesson for all of us. I could get upset with all of you for letting him come out here like this. You were all responsible for making sure that he was prepared. Instead, I want to show you an example of a Marine who has improvised, adapted and overcome. He knew that he didn’t have what was required but instead of simply rolling over and being a wimp, he decided that he would do his best with what he could find. When you are at war you will not have the perfect gear. In fact, you seldom have the right things. Uncle Sam makes sure that the Army, Navy and Air Force have all of the things that they need because he trusts the Marines can survive. You will have to improvise, adapt and overcome. You are not allowed to fail. Failure is simply not an option allowed to Marines. Therefore you will have to figure out how you will overcome. This recruit has shown that type of spirit by using what was available to get the job done.”

Turning to you the drill instructor mutters in a gruff whisper, “Now you get that slimy goop off your face and get back into my formation in 5 seconds or I will wear you out.”

Christians are in no less the same predicament. Failure is not an option in the mission for God. We must take the attitude of Christ, “What is impossible with men is possible with God.” There is no heart too hard, no sin too deep, no person out of God’s range of help. We have no excuses for not having faith in God. When we find ourselves lacking faith, we must improvise, adapt and overcome.

In the movie, Heartbreak Ridge, Clint Eastwood plays the part of Gunnery Sergeant Highway. He is tough as nails and seems to mercilessly lead his troops. Throughout the training Gunny Highway (‘Gunny' is acceptable shortening of the title Gunnery Sergeant in the Marines, ‘Sarge’ is an inappropriate shortening of the title sergeant, don’t ask me why, I still don’t know but I found that out the hard way). Gunny Highway challenges the Marines to think outside of the box. He wants them to be prepared to fight under any conditions not just participate in pre-determined war simulations that follow textbook attack procedures. Later in the movie we see why Gunny Highway trained the men so hard. This same group of Marines, lead by Gunny Highway is part of the landing force that rescued American medical students on the island country of Grenada[1].

In the movie, Gunny Highway’s Marines encounter resistance and find themselves cornered in a small building. An opposing tank sits outside blasting holes in the walls, spelling certain doom for the Marines inside. Unfortunately the radio person has been killed and the radio destroyed. Without the radio the Marines inside have no means to call for backup from helicopters or other anti-tank support. This is a hopeless situation. It would appear that the Marines will either surrender or die as shells from the tank wreak havoc on the small building. In a stroke of brilliance one of the Marines realizes that there is a phone line in the building. After a heroic mission to reconnect the severed line the Marines make a pay phone call to the US (using credit cards of course). They are connected to the base command in North Carolina and ask the operator to relay a message regarding their location back to the air support. The message works and the helicopters arrive to destroy the tank and save the Marines.

My point to telling you this is to help you to see that in that situation the Marines were able to save themselves when they were left without the proper equipment. They were able to do this because they improvised (deciding to make a phone call to the US from a battle in Grenada), adapt (fix the phone line and use a personal credit card) which allowed them to overcome.

As a Marine for God, every person that you meet and every situation that you run into will never be perfectly described by a textbook. No one can tell you all that you need to know about being a Christian. The Bible itself is limited in the amount of information specific to you that it contains. It is a training manual not a movie script.

The biggest area that I have seen this attitude needed is in regard to time. Disciples of Christ are doing our best to be ‘fishers of men’, ‘ambassadors of the gospel’ and ‘workers in the field of God.’ (Matt 4:19, 2 Corn 5:20, Luke 10:2). Meanwhile we are lawyers, hairstylists, parents and citizens. Our lives are filled with chores, soccer games and school plays. Even those of us who are students have responsibilities to ‘work with all our hearts, as working for the Lord, not men’ (Col 3:23). This fills our time up. Not to mention our responsibilities to the body of Christ (which is the church). So when we sit down to have a spiritual conversation or help someone make decisions about becoming a Christian, we may not be perfectly prepared. Of course it would be wonderful if we had all of the answers and all of the time in the world to prepare for each spiritual conversation. As Marines for God we feel compelled to follow Paul’s command, “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. (2 Corn 10:5)” We want to be used by God to demolish the demons of insecurity and sin that plague the lives of our friends. But what do you do when you aren’t completely prepared? What will you say to that person who is caught in the grips of elevating their religious dogma above loving God? You know that they need sound teaching from the Bible and so that we can ‘avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless (Titus3:9). You want to be ‘prepared to answer’ (1 Peter 3:15). But you didn’t go to seminary or spend years preparing as an evangelist.

In a situation like that you have two options, Give up and decide to drive the conversation away from spiritual topics, which of course your friend won’t mind because he doesn’t want to deal with changing his spiritual life. Of course you know that this is simply handing yourself and your friend over to Satan. If you have the opportunity to help someone and you cower to your fear of being unprepared to handle the situation, then Satan has won, his flaming arrows of lies and deception (John 8:44). The other option is to improvise, adapt and overcome. Improvise with faith in God (for you know that it is God that works in the hearts of men and He can use any of us to communicate to them). We must adapt our hearts and minds; resolving ourselves with our imperfections. Often times we had a plan laid out for our day that included a time to prepare for a Bible study or for a deep conversation. But often that plan is thrown off by some unforeseen event in the day. We must adapt. We will feel frustrated and disappointed with our inability to ‘stick to the plan.’ We may feel ignoble since we know that a ‘noble man makes noble plans’. However we can adapt our hearts to the situation and live out the completion of the prophet’s words. We adapt our hearts and overcome the temptation of fear, thus standing ‘noble by the noble deeds’ (Isaiah 32:8).

Let’s use an appropriate quote from The Art of War by Sun-Tzu:

If you know the enemy and know yourself,
you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.
If you know yourself but not the enemy,
for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.
If you know neither the enemy nor yourself,
you will succumb in every battle.

Know Yourself: Strengths and Weaknesses
If you know what areas you are weak in you will focus on improving those. Romans 3:9-20 states clearly and unequivocally that we are all sinners, condemned to the wrath of God for our heinous acts of betrayal and adultery in his eyes.
Second, know that you are not weak in everything. You either have lots of Biblical knowledge, lots of worldly life experience or some combination. You are young and idealistic or older and wise. You are a minority and understand the feelings of glass ceilings, oppression and limitations or you are a member of the majority and you feel uninhibited by the world. You are well educated and your knowledge of the scripture is steeped in deep study. You are uneducated and you are able to simplify the complex scriptures and give them daily practicality. You are wealthy and understand the temptations of money or you are poor and have a daily experience in humility and sacrifice.

This is what Paul sees when he envisions the unity of the body of Christ, the church. He states, “If one part suffers every par suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. (Corn 12:26).” Everyone has a gift to bring, everyone is needed. When you know yourself you know what you need to change and you know what you have to give.

Know Your Enemy
The enemy is out there. “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8).” Do not be deceived that think that the war is over and the good guys have won. Christ died for the sins of all but it is up to each individual to accept the gift. The war is still on and the bad guys are gaining ground. Know the weapons of your enemy: lies, deceit and false teachings. Know how the enemy uses the weapons. In other words know his strengths. Work with other members of God’s Marines to determine the strategy of the enemy. Discuss his tactics and his favorite weapons.

Also know his weaknesses. Know that the greatest defeat of the devil exists in the outpouring of unconditional love. Love is the eternal trump card! Nothing outlasts love, nothing defeats it. Satan’s greatest weakness is love. Know the power of truth.

Do you see how Sun-Tzu’s message is powerful? When you know yourself and the enemy, you will not fear the battle. You will not fear in your faith. You will continue to persevere in every situation. You will not fear the result of battle because despite defeat you will not lose your strengths and despite a victory you will not lose your weaknesses.

If instead, you are selfish (only thinking of yourself and your weaknesses; which by-the-way is the recommendation of so many self-help books) you face a wide range of emotions for every battle. In victory you feel success and in defeat your feel the agony. You feel this because despite your selfish efforts you still have weaknesses.

Finally, if you are apathetic, your life is full of negatives. With your sardonic attitude it won’t matter that you won a landslide victory, you will be too busy concentrating on your weaknesses. It also won’t matter that you experienced a horrible defeat because you will remind yourself that you expected it.

Remember that despite the outcome of the battle, you will never be perfect, you will never earn salvation, you will never stop needing God.

[1] Actual landing in Grenada happened on October 25, 1983. a force of 1200 US Marines met heavy resistance from Grenadian and Cuban army units. http://www.historyguy.com/Grenada.htmlaccessed on Aug 15,2003