We just recently watched Hacksaw Ridge. It is about a man named Desmond Doss who enlisted in World War 2 voluntarily to be a conscientious objector medic. It was deeply moving for me. However, I would love to read a book on him to know what was true and what was movie.
I have always felt like the odd ball.
Different.
I have always despised these feelings. Early in my life I began to define different as bad. Coping mechanisms kicked in to place and pushed me to avoid being different at all costs. I have spent much of my life trying to fit in.
In Hacksaw Ridge, I was struck by how firm Desmond was in his beliefs and how he was not swayed to be the same as everyone else. In the movie he said this: “I don’t know how I am going to live with myself if I don’t stay true to what I believe.”
He faced all sorts of objections, criticism, and even physical harm from his fellow soldiers because of his refusal to use a weapon in combat. He was called a coward. Yet he didn’t let it define him. He stood on his belief in what God asked him to do.
At one point in the movie he was challenged with something along the lines of: how can evil be fought if everyone refuses to fight. He answered by saying, I don’t have all the answer to big questions like that. While he stood for what he believed, he lived a life that didn’t say I am better than everyone else, or I know it all. He was humble and brave.
His story really resonated with me because I am the type of person who is very empathetic and sees all the possible angles. While this is a great quality to have, it also makes it hard for me to stand on what I believe God is asking of me. He wasn’t denying there were other possible angles, he was simply standing firm on what he believed.
Don’t we all need a good dose of that? He was defined by God and what God was asking him to do, not on what others called him or what others said he should do. I want to be more like that.
As I was thinking about what it means to be defined I looked up the definition of define. Here is what good old google gave me:
- state or describe exactly the nature, scope, or meaning of.
- mark out the boundary or limits of.
As I pondered this definition of define a realization came over me. Why would I let other people’s definitions of me or thoughts about what I should do define me? Doesn’t the very definition of define sound like something only God can do for each of us? Only my Creator can define who I am, what I am meant to do, and the limits of that. Only my Creator can answer all those hard questions. Only our Creator has a big enough mind to see the whole picture. We are small parts of the whole picture, I want my life to be defined by what He says, not what others think.
People thought Desmond was a coward. They thought he was useless in war. But you know what? He stayed on that ridge when everyone else retreated. He saved 75 people who were unable to retreat and were left to suffer alone. Not only that, but there was no one helping him lower these men down off that steep ridge. He tied this special tie (which he was ironically made fun of for earlier in the movie) and lowered each man one by one. After each man was lowered, he breathed a prayer, “Lord help me get one more.”
He was not defined by what people thought of him or what they said he should do. He stood firm in how God defined his life, and in the end he was a hero.
I want my life to be like that too. I want to stand on what God says about me and what He asks me to do trusting Him for the outcome and the strength to carry through. I am beginning to think more and more that this simple but incredibly hard act is what a brave and meaningful life looks like.
