Because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, [Jesus] said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”
—Mark 6:31
MILITARY PROGRAMS incorporate rest and recuperation (R&R) into their operational orders in hostile environments or combat zones for a reason. The intensity of war, the stress of being away from home, the pressure of operating in an unpredictable and hostile environment, and unknown outcomes all add up very quickly to hamper a soldier’s ability to stay focused on the mission.
This hostile environment (as we discussed in chapter 5) is aptly named VUCA: “volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity.” This is exactly what a warrior in combat faces daily. So into military operations that stretch on for a year or more, smart military leaders embed an R&R program. This is to help soldiers get away from the VUCA environment and relax in a non-threatening, welcoming place. The military understands that a soldier cannot survive in a hostile environment for an entire year. You just won’t make it, mentally or emotionally, so they take you out for R&R.
Soldiers fighting in a combat zone need a reason to keep fighting and putting their lives on the line. If they can say to themselves that they will be in an R&R zone in a few weeks or months, not having to worry about the stress of combat, it acts as a carrot for them to think, There are things up ahead that I’m really going to enjoy. I can stick it out right now because the clock is ticking and I’ll be there soon.
You may not live in a combat zone, but you, too, need periodic R&R to get away from it all. There are times we just need to get away from the hustle and bustle, so we go on vacations, to retreats and places where the environment is less stressful. During those times we get to rest, unwind and recuperate.
Jesus understood the importance of R&R. He told His disciples to go with Him “to a quiet place and get some rest” (Mark 6:31). Since they were often around crowds, there were times they needed to rest and prepare for the next leg of their ministry.
Warriors of God, even amid the demands of our careers, ministries and families, also need time to regain focus, sensibility and equilibrium, because we just cannot keep fighting and fighting. It is the same with pastors. Without R&R they can burn out or be ineffective in their callings; so there are times they must pull back from the front lines of spiritual warfare.
In many respects, life stressors and spiritual warfare are similar. We can easily become casualties in this war. Our enemy would like to use the daily grind to wear us into the ground. No, bullets are not flying overhead, and combat is much more intense and demanding than daily living. But rest in our culture is almost a forgotten term, especially during this age of distraction. We are so connected to our smartphones, schedules and appointments that, for many of us, there is no time to rest—or so we tell ourselves. In fact, some of us pride ourselves on being busy. A sign of success is a full schedule and a packed calendar. But distraction without purpose is one of the surest signs of a person needing renewal and rest.
We see the consequences of this with pastors who burn out because they are so busy doing God’s work that they do not take care of themselves. In a recent LifeWay Research poll of 1,500 pastors, 54 percent found the role of pastor “frequently overwhelming”; 53 percent were “often concerned about their family’s financial security”; and 48 percent saw the demands of ministry as “more than they can handle.”1 Military chaplains and soldiers experience the same thing, which is why the military requires rest and recuperation.
For pastors, chaplains, soldiers and civilians—people from all walks of life—there comes a point when, not rested and not taking care of your physical, psychological and spiritual needs, you become ineffective. We saw in the last chapter that God created the Sabbath as a day of rest once a week, but many people today do not heed the Fourth Commandment. Warriors need rest. Without it they become ineffective in combat.
Rest, like most things, does not just jump onto your schedule. Corporate leaders, first responders, pastors, ministers, evangelists, missionaries, mothers, fathers, caretakers and ordinary foot soldiers need to plan for rest on a regular basis.
Lessons from the Cave of Adullam
A story in the Old Testament exemplifies why warriors of God need R&R from time to time. David was hiding from King Saul in the cave of Adullam because Saul was trying to kill him. The prophet Samuel had foretold the end of Saul’s reign, and had anointed David as king, but Saul would not submit to the will of the Lord and sent his men in search of David to kill him. For four years David was on the lam, hiding with his men in shelters, strongholds and caves. For example:
David departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam. And when his brothers and all his father’s house heard it, they went down to him there. There gathered to him every one that was in distress, and every one in debt, and every one that was discontented. So he became captain over them. Now there were with him about four hundred men.
1 Samuel 22:1–2 MEV
Archaeologists and historians tell us that Adullam was one of the royal cities of the Canaanites located on the old Roman road in the Valley of Elah, the place of David’s extraordinary victory over Goliath. It was one of the towns that King Rehoboam, grandson of King David, later fortified against Egypt.2
The cave of Adullam has been determined to be about two miles from where the battle with Goliath took place and about thirteen miles west of Bethlehem. Near this site is a peak about five hundred feet high punctuated with numerous caverns. David gathered in one of these caves with his men who were “in distress” or “in debt” or “discontented.”
As we become battle ready and battle focused, there are some lessons from the cave of Adullam that we can apply to our lives today. As David and his band of brothers huddled together, they had time to reflect, plan and envision a new chapter in their lives. As they looked out over the valley below, they could sense new vistas and accomplishments that had never crossed their minds before.
If we want to be battle ready and rebuild that which has been lost in our lives, we need to get alone with God and become invigorated with the fresh wind of His Spirit. David faced ongoing persecution from Saul by regrouping, recalculating and reigniting his faith in the God who had defeated the giant not far from where he was now hiding. Sometimes we need a new start, away from the pace and crowds.
Also, David did not go it alone. He drew like-minded individuals who, as it turned out, would fight to the death for him. Those who are truly depressed do not want anyone around—just the opposite of what they need! We all need support—like-minded people full of faith to encourage us to stay on the path to victory.
Author and filmmaker Joel Richardson says:
I believe the Church today could learn much from King David, who trusted in God, and as a result was fearless. He didn’t live by fear. He didn’t live by anxiety, but was willing to take on giants. I’m looking right now and saying, Where are the Davids of this generation who will rise up and confront the Goliaths of our time because they have confidence in the Lord? They are not afraid of losing their own lives. They are not afraid of losing anything, because they trust that the battle belongs to the Lord.3
Repurposing
I had an experience like King David’s in Saudi Arabia right after Desert Storm in the spring of 1991. My unit, the 43rd Air Defense Artillery Regiment that uses Patriot missile systems, was deployed to protect airfields and oil refineries. My unit was designed to shoot down enemy combat planes and missiles.
Early one morning the Bravo battery commander rushed into my quarters at Khobar Towers in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. “Chaplain,” he exclaimed, “get to the bunker now. We have an inbound Scud to our location.”
The Patriot radar had detected a Scud—an Iraqi surface-to-surface missile with a large explosive payload—that had been launched out of Iraq and was headed our way at that very moment. It was time to scramble to the nearby underground bunker, a large concrete shelter that you entered by stairwell. I got down there in a hurry.
When I arrived, many soldiers were already there. You could have heard a pin drop in the bunker because of the tension. Everyone was in deep thought. In those few minutes (which seemed like an eternity), I had time to reflect on the important things in life. I prayed silently for our troops and the situation we were in.
The Scud did not hit our location. But in that bunker—my own cave of Adullam—I found the opportunity to reprioritize and repurpose my life for the glory of God. I realized that we are all but a hairsbreadth away from eternity at any moment. I purposed to walk closer to the Lord, hold deep my relationships with family and friends, and ensure that everyone around me heard about Jesus Christ, the only true center of my life.
Is it time for you as God’s warrior to refocus and repurpose, too?
Rising Up
Dr. Robert Mawire, founder and president of WRNO Worldwide—a global broadcasting platform out of Fort Worth, Texas, with the third-largest reach among shortwave radio networks, after Voice of America and the BBC—says the end times could be the Church’s finest hour as God pours out His Spirit on the world (see Joel 2:28 and Acts 2:17–21):
I believe that when the Spirit of God comes upon the Church, we’re going to be a triumphant, victorious Church. Jesus is not coming back for a defeated Church in fear and hiding. No, it’s going to be the most glorious time. Our God is bigger than external circumstances. Revelation 3:10 says, “I also will keep you from the hour of testing” [NASB]. Not “take you away” but “keep you from.” In other words, it’s going to be a larger multiplication of food and angels on assignment; it’s going to be like Egypt. While the rest of Egypt was being tried, God was blessing His people.
Mawire says that what the devil does in the end times, and what the world does, is the “sideshow.” He goes on to explain:
The real show is the anointing coming upon the Church, the vindication of the Church, the rising up of the Church to be a militant, glorious Bride without spot or wrinkle. That’s the exciting thing, the wondrous thing. In terms of what shall we eat, He said, “I’ll give you all those things.” You don’t even have to ask because God’s got total provision and there is nothing to worry about, but to get excited.4
John Ramirez, internationally known evangelist and former satanic cult (Santeria) high-ranking priest in New York City, says the Church needs to step out of the boat and understand that there is a spiritual war raging in the heavenlies, and that we are part of that war:
We’re more than conquerors. The remnant that God has today doesn’t look like regular church. They’re armed and dangerous out there, doing the work of God. They’re doing spiritual warfare—intercession. Pastors are setting people free. People are coming in with cancer and they go back to the doctors and there is no more cancer. They go to the doctor and there is no more diabetes. These are infirmity spirits that are being cast out.
People don’t just want to hear preaching. They want to see the power of the demonstration of the Holy Spirit. Jesus came on the scene and preached, but He had power. Paul came on the scene and preached, but he had power. Peter came on the scene and preached, but his shadow healed people. He had power. The first three hundred years of the church had power. So what’s going on today?5
Enemy Strategies
British writer C. S. Lewis wrote the delightful and popular book The Screwtape Letters in 1942, filled with fictional correspondence between a senior devil, Screwtape, and a junior tempter named Wormwood. Screwtape reviews Wormwood’s tactics, techniques and procedures in tempting a particular man. This imaginary riff by Erik Lokkesmoe, based on Screwtape’s diabolical advice, describes one of many end-times strategies actually being employed against believers today:
Good news! The latest commendations have arrived from the Council of the Pit. You impress the lower-downs, my zealous Wormwood. They have heard of your schemes on the Noise Proliferation Committee (NPC). Indeed, places of solitude and moments of silence grow ever more scarce in the Enemy’s vast and vulgar dominion. Oh, what euphoria to see his insufferable creatures rush to fill the dead air with a cacophony of cell phones and [Muzak], leaf blowers and manipulated car exhaust pipes, 24–hour news and iPods. Those nauseating humans cannot escape their self-made dungeon of din! My pride bubbles like brimstone, Wormwood.6
In this fanciful depiction, the very real plan by the enemy of our souls is distress and distraction, using the powerful weapon of noise. If he can keep us from hearing God’s still, small voice, and communing with Him, then he has achieved a great victory over our lives.
I learned this in recent years when I moved from the city to the country. I sleep more deeply and soundly out in the country, where nature has an allure not found in fast-paced city life.
Not everyone, I realize, can move out of the city—hence the need for rest and retreat. As the time of the end approaches, there is a sense of things speeding up, whether in technology, entertainment, science or education. The amount of knowledge floods us with unlimited options, distractions and noise. The more we are immersed in it, the more time we need away from it.
Another end-times strategy is the advent of artificial intelligence (AI), which we now find at the heart of many technologies, including smart cars, autonomous drones, robotics, weapons of warfare, speech recognition, machine learning platforms, AI–optimized hardware decision management systems, deep learning platforms, and biometrics, to name a few. As with all new technologies, each has distinct advantages, but these new digitized tools are increasing our dependence on them.
The promise of more leisure time and less intrusion into our lives is a lie. With the rise of AI, we are finding new addictions to the internet, alarming intrusions into our psyches, and a host of other soul-numbing contrivances that we have yet to hear about.
The real strategy of the “god of this age” (2 Corinthians 4:4) is to control mankind through weaponized technologies that now cannot be stopped, even if we wanted to. The more time we are unplugged and away from these technologies, the better off we are.
Rest and Recuperation in Scripture
Here are some Scriptures we find encouraging and comforting, promising R&R in the end times:
MILITARY R&R
The Rest and Recuperation (R&R) program is an essential element of the military. These are some of its benefits:
BELIEVER’S R&R
End-times warriors of God also need rest and recuperation. Here are some suggestions:
STRATEGIC SPIRITUAL EXERCISES
Here are some practical takeaways for R&R: