Chapter One
What you are about to read isn’t for everyone. It’s for what I call desperate people. So, are you a desperate person? There are ways to tell. You may have wealth or you may be living in poverty, people may view you as a tremendous success, a tragic failure or something in between. Or they may not see you at all as though you don’t even exist. You may be a young person, wandering, not knowing what to do with your life. Or old, wondering what all of it has meant. Whoever you are, you’ve been asking serious questions. What’s the purpose
for your life? And does any of it really matter? I’m looking for people whose desperation comes from brutal honesty. They’ve asked the tough questions and there is emptiness in their souls.
If this describes you, let me suggest something radical. You have the heart of a warrior, but you have been misled by our culture with lies about how to find meaning and fulfillment in life. So come with me on a journey. It’s not going to be easy because you have an enemy who knows you better than you know yourself. He wants to keep you drowning in depression and despair because that’s how he wins. I’m looking for desperate warriors who are ready to walk away from all the lies and begin a new, very dangerous way to live, but a way that is filled with eternal meaning and ends in glory. I want you to really meet Someone who loves you more than you could ever imagine and who knows what your life can be because you are His creation. I’m calling you to meet the eternal King, Jesus Christ and begin the life of a servant warrior for Him. I can tell you from my own years of experience there is nothing more difficult
and nothing greater.
But up front, let’s get a few things straight. I’m not talking about the fake Christianity that spews political rage on social media. I’m not talking about the fake Christianity that excuses every evil to get what it wants. Millions are walking away from the church, because so many churches are not really churches at all. They are either political cesspools, huge entertainment
centers, clubs that encourage every pop sin available to commit, or cold spiritual gym classes where you follow the agenda and hope it means something. You can walk in and out of those buildings for years and it won’t make the slightest difference in your life. For desperate people all these options are pointless and often disgusting.
I understand desperate people because I’ve been one. I know what it means to make a massive change that redefines your entire life, to go from what is weak and comfortable to what is real and wonderfully dangerous. If you travel on this path with me, you’re going to hear a lot of stories about my journey. You’re going to meet, Carel, my wife, the wonderful warrior woman who has been my partner in battle for over 58 years. So right up front, disabuse yourself of the
stupid fantasy that being a servant warrior is only for males. Right now, I know women who are some of the greatest servant warriors I have ever met. So here we are, at 79 years old I don’t have time to mess around, that’s why I’m searching for courageous people who are desperate enough to make a radical choice.
Want to hear a story about desperation? In 1966, I was 20 years old and had just been thrown out of my second Christian college. Did I deserve to be thrown out? Of course, not. Well, maybe I was a little less concerned about academics and a little too interested in social activities. I had graduated in the bottom 3 percentile of my high school class so at least I was being consistent. Anyway, 1966 was a very bad year for a young idiot to be on the street with no college protection. Vietnam, a place I had never heard of, was rising in popularity, and the military draft was sucking in thousands. I knew my days were literally numbered, so I enlisted in the Army with the hope of choosing my own path. Choosing my own path was a disastrous strategy that I thought would work for life. It doesn’t. At 20 years old, I wanted to be an army officer, a warrior. Of course, I didn’t have the slightest idea what that would cost.
I was sent to Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri for basic training. The first week was truly miserable. Tests and more tests. Invasive physical exams and shots. When we got our uniforms, we looked like green, walking bags of meat. I’ll tell you I was depressed. What had I done? This was not fun at all. The end of the first week arrived. There were 40 of us in a barracks, sitting around waiting to be assigned to a basic training company so the real misery could begin. Suddenly, somebody yelled, ATTENTION. We leaped to our feet and stood rigidly
in front of our bunks, 20 of us on each side of a center aisle.
Into the room stalked three of the most terrifying human beings that I had ever seen. Their uniforms were tailored, pressed and starched to the point that you wondered how they could move. Their brass was polished until it seemed to glow. They looked like they were made of steel, and they had the faces of human Doberman. They were drill sergeants, the old-fashioned kind. I knew we were doomed. Suddenly, their leader yelled out, “Who’s the toughest man in
this room?” What kind of question was that? Then, I heard some jackass say, “I am.” Clearly, we had a suicidal maniac among us. Then came a horrible realization. I had said it. The whole room just went deathly still. Every eye was on me.
Was I insane? The toughest man in the room? There were 39 other guys in that barracks, a cross-section of male humanity. There were jocks, there were gangbangers, there were farm boys that rode bulls. The toughest man in the room? All through high school, I had hated sports. I hated gym class. You had to run laps and I hated running. That’s why God gave us cars.
So I got a doctor’s note that said I had terrible allergies which got me into the handicapped gym class. That’s right and oh, I how loved it. That old saying, in the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king is totally true. I rocked that class. I played ping pong with a kid who had one leg. I played four square with him. And I was merciless. You should have seen that dude hopping around. Oh, yeah, I was the toughest man in that barracks. Unfortunately, all the other
guys had two legs.
There are moments when you just want to leave your body and float up into the sky, so you won’t have to experience the agony that you have brought on yourself. This was one of those moments. The drill sergeant turned and slowly walked over to me. His face got so close to mine that his Smokey Bear hat almost touched my forehead. Staring at me with eyes of death he rasped, “So you’re the toughest man in the room?” What I wanted to say was, “No, no, no, I
was just joking. See that guy over there? He’s the toughest guy in the room, not me.”
But there was no turning back. With eyes of steel so I wouldn’t start bawling like a baby, I answered, “Yes, drill sergeant.” Then, he spoke words of death, “Come outside with me.” WHAT? OUTSIDE? I don’t want to go anyplace with you. See all these guys, they’re my closest friends in the world. Please don’t make me leave them. He turned on his heel and stalked toward the door. I was taken out of line and between the other two drill sergeants I followed him. It was like going the last mile to your execution. All the guys were staring at me. I could
hear them thinking, “There goes the idiot. We won’t see him again.” And they were right. They never did. Outside he put me up against a wall. Then he faced me and said, “I’m sending you to leadership school.”
What? Leadership school? You’re not going to beat the bloody heck out of me? Oh, thank you, God. But why had I said that inside the barracks? Why, in a single moment with no time to think, had I taken such a risk? I knew why. I was desperate to change my life. To that point I had failed at everything. I would do anything not to fail at this. Have you ever felt that way? Maybe that’s where you are right now. If so, welcome warrior.
I was sent to a weeklong school and afterward became a trainee platoon sergeant in a basic training company. A year later, after much more hard training, I was commissioned as an infantry Second Lieutenant. Six months after that, I was in Vietnam. In 1968 as a 22-year-old First Lieutenant, I led a rifle platoon of young men in combat. During that time, I lost two young soldiers, killed in an ambush. And so easily it could have been me. When you send 18-year-old warriors home in body bags, it changes you forever. When I came home, I brought with me
decorations that I had been awarded. I was certainly a warrior, but not the right kind. With all I had been through, I still had no idea what being a servant warrior for Jesus Christ was all about. After the army, it took ten more years of failure and growing desperation before I was ready to take the risk and make the most important decision of my life. As we go forward, you will hear about that agonizing process.
But at this point, you may say, that’s great for you, Coleman. Yes, I’m a desperate person, but I don’t really believe in God or Jesus. I would answer this way. I didn’t live my life in a sweety-pie bubble. I would never call anyone to believe or do anything that I had not proven to be absolutely true for many, many years. Either Jesus is who the Bible says He is or it’s all a delusion. There is no middle ground. But if He is real, He is quite capable of communicating with you.
So, I challenge you to a test. For the next 14 days lay aside your religiously held atheism or vaunted agnosticism. Each day for 14 days, get alone and talk to Jesus as though He is real. Each day say something like this and really mean it, “Jesus, I don’t know if you are real, but I really want to know. If you are real, would you speak to me and show me? If you are real, I will give my life to you.” During those 14 days I want you to do one other thing. Get a Bible and each day read one chapter in the Gospel of John. That’s in the New Testament. Then just shut
up, watch and listen. If you do this, what have you got to lose apart from an ounce of your pride? If you don’t do it, you could lose everything forever? Those are the stakes in this gamble. Hope to see you in chapter two.
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