The Greatest Warrior

Scripture: Psalms 22:1

Why, God…?

God, why would You let good men die?

Why wouldn’t You let me die with my friends?

Why has it been so hard to forgive and forget?

Why do I often do the things I despise?

Why, God, is it so hard to find peace?

If you have questions like these, then you’ve come to the right place. In this series, you will hear stories from warriors who have struggled with these very questions. 

These warriors consider themselves to be part of something bigger – part of God’s story. 

You have a place in God’s story too. So let the stories and experiences you read in the next few days point you toward your role and the truest freedom there is. 

PRAYER: God, show me Your peace. Let me experience Your freedom. 

Scripture: Romans 8:28

How God Uses Pain to Bring Us Closer to Him

Ken Korkow, Corporal, USMC

I have been awarded a Navy Cross, a Purple Heart and had a day named after me as my home state’s highest decorated veteran.

But I also have constant physical and emotional pain and a medical discharge from the Marine Corps for Traumatic Brain Injury, Post Traumatic Stress and various battle wounds.

Although I was very involved in my church growing up, I immediately gave it all up when a friend was killed in combat. It hurt so much that I vowed I wouldn’t’ have any friends or feelings.

Several weeks after this, some of the men who reported to me were killed. I went from being cold to being cruel toward the world. 

I was angry with God (if he even existed at all) and determined to make my own rules. The intense rage inside of me fueled my financial and social success. 

But there was no peace.

On my road to healing, I’ve discovered that God does not waste pain. If we allow Him to, He will use it to shape us into the best version of ourselves. There is no amount of pain that Jesus cannot overcome. After all, He is the greatest warrior who ever lived. 

PRAYER: Lord, thank You for Your promise to work all things for my good as I love You and follow Your purpose for my life. Bring Your healing touch, Your hope, and encouragement to my heart and mind today. 

Scripture: James 4:8

Reaching Out to God

Chris D. & Renee Ayres

Captain, Bravo 1/5, USMC, Retired

While fighting in Fallujah, I was hit with an RPG, leaving the back of my right leg torn to shreds. All I could think about were the contractors that were dragged through the streets there and hung from a bridge above the Euphrates. I was afraid I was going to be next. 

The damage to my leg turned out to be minimal compared to the hit my mind and my family took.

After lying in the hospital for over two and a half months, I went home to a life that was now foreign to me. My anger was hard to understand and control. My wife, Renee, knew I was suffering from combat trauma. She asked me to see someone about it, but I was too much of a man and a Marine to admit to this kind of struggle.

The turning point came when I almost killed my wife. Listen to what happened from her perspective.

Chris was a different man from the one I married. Whenever we fought – which was often – I began the target of his anger. 

One day we got into a fight and I refused to back down. He finally said he was going to divorce me. He pushed me and our baby daughter, which banged into the wall, and started crying. He picked her up and then took me by the throat, lifting me off the floor. I knew I was about to die. His eyes were glassed over – he wasn’t there.

I spent hours that night trying to find someone or somewhere to help him. I found an inpatient program that he agreed to check into. He was gone for 111 days.

I was thankful for what Renee had done for me. When I returned to my family, I had the tools to identify when I was making poor judgements. 

Finally, I decided enough was enough. I drew a line in the sand, reached out to God and cracked open the Bible and started reading the New Testament. The deeper I engage the Bible, the deeper my relationship with Jesus becomes as I try to live out the story that He wants to write for my life.

PRAYER: Lord, thank You for coming near me as I come near to You. Thank You for being faithful and true, always present and ready to provide what I need to live free from fear and the wounds of the past. Be my strength today and every day.

Scripture: 2 Corinthians 5:17

From Death to New Life

Phil Downer

Machine Gunner, Corporal, USMC

We were ambushed during a search and destroy assault and it was a kill-or-be-killed battle. 

My buddy, John, was a machine gunner, which was always the first target. We charged across the open rice paddy as bullets rained down on us. I hit the deck to return fire as a bullet ripped through my pack. Then I felt a heavy weight – John lay dead on top of me. 

I felt like someone had ripped my stomach out. 

When I came home, I met Susy in college and we were married. I began to hope the internal scars from my combat were going to leave me forever. But they didn’t.

I wanted to be kind and nurturing to my wife, but my nightmares each night and the scars in my heart left me tense and angry. I took out my pain on the one I loved most.

Susy began studying the Bible with another woman and convinced me to attend a meeting where a Christian man shared his story. It wasn’t what I expected.

I realized Jesus’ taking my place in death through His sacrifice on the cross and resurrection allowed me to enter into new life. I began meeting with a man who introduced me to the Bible and led me to passages such as:

“God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.” – 1 John 5:11,12, NIV

I wanted this life. I decided to follow Jesus and give him control of my life.

When God raised Jesus Christ from the grave, He conquered the powers of sin and death. And now, all who are willing to accept this gift of new life that Jesus offers can step from death into new life in him.

PRAYER: I want eternal life too, Lord. I want to follow You. I give You control of my life and ask that You would lead me out from death, into new life. 

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 15:2

Loved by God

Dan Nigolian

Chaplain, Lt. Colonel, USAF, Retired

The enemy couldn’t kill me and I resented it. They shot me out of the sky and I survived. Bullets riddled the ground all around me but never found their mark. 

When it came time to retire, my records were reviewed and I was asked if I’d ever been tested for PTSD. I was bulletproof and had a big, red “S” on my chest. I was a preacher. I counseled guys with PTSD. Of course, I didn’t have it!

Scoring 100 means you have the worst PTSD possible. I got 99.

I have concluded that it takes more courage to face what’s inside of you than to face the enemy. As I continue to fight this, I’m learning to appreciate the present. Right here and right now, I am loved by God and by my family. God doesn’t care about my rank or my theological degrees or anything like that. Despite knowing me deeply, He loves me – to my surprise and relief. 

It was being exposed to death brought on by war that led to my own personal battle. But there’s one Person who has defeated death and that’s Jesus. So He can defeat the effects of death in me. And that’s my hope and my rest.

PRAYER: Father, thank You for saving me through the work of Your Son. You are my hope and my rest. 

Scripture: Psalms 13:5

God Will Light Your Path

Hernando & Mari Peña 

Master Sergeant, US Army, Retired

I was deployed away from my wife, Mari, and our 16-day-old son just two months after the Twin Towers fell. When I returned home, I decided to retire after many years in the Army.

We decided to have another child. But my retirement was stopped and when our new daughter was about one-year-old, I was deployed again.

As I led a team in tracking down insurgents, I witnessed some of my men getting killed – men that I had desperately wanted to return to their wives and families in one piece. 

Then I found myself in the middle of an IED blast that shook me severely and left me with a brain injury. 

As I tried to leave the war behind me, I found that I had actually brought it home with me to my family. The flashbacks and nightmares led to jumpiness and anxiety. I was unleashing a full-blown rage. As my drinking became heavy, my moral compass began to spin out of control. I needed help.

I’ll let my wife tell the rest of the story.

Hernando went from being an attentive, kind, affectionate husband and father to a paranoid, hallucinating, spirit-crushing stranger. 

I received an email from a friend, inviting me to church to hear someone speak about combat trauma. As they described the symptoms, my jaw dropped. I began to pray with desperation and hope. 

A couple from the church asked us to get together with them once a week to pray. As they learned our story, they immersed us in the Bible. 

Slowly my husband’s heart began to soften. I knew I’d never have the man that I married, but God gave me a deep love for the new man that my husband had become.

Life is still challenging but I believe that God will continue to light the path that we are on together.

PRAYER: Lord, bring Your life and truth of Your Word into the pain of my past. Bring Your healing. Shine Your light in the darkness of my life and give me hope. 

Scripture: John 14:27

Peace in Times of War

Many warriors feel that once they’ve entered the battle, they will never leave. They may come home, but the war comes with them – wreaking havoc not only inside them but with their family and friends. 

Other warriors are preparing to go into battle to fight for peace but have never experienced true peace themselves. 

Real peace is found when we acknowledge Jesus as the King over all other kings. 

When God created the world, it was peaceful. There was harmony between humans, God and creation. But that went away when people decided to try ruling creation themselves. By doing this, they allowed sin and death to tear through creation, destroying that harmony.

God wanted the harmony back, so He devised a plan. He sent his Son Jesus to rescue the world.  Jesus did this in an unexpected way: He allowed the foreign rulers to crucify him. His followers were bewildered because it looked like the enemy had won. What kind of warrior loses his most important battle?

But Jesus didn’t come to conquer the evil rulers. He came to defeat the powers behind the rulers. And that’s what He did three days later when He rose from the grave. Death was defeated. Real peace came into the world again.

To experience that peace, you can pray a prayer like this one:

Jesus, You are the true King, the King over all other kings. I believe that You died on the cross in my place, that You rose from the dead and that in You I can have eternal life. 

Forgive me for the sinful things I’ve done so that I can forgive others for the sinful things they‘ve done to me. 

Give me new life that I may be an ambassador of Your life to the rest of the world. Bring peace to my heart, to my mind, and to my body, that I may practice peace in Your world. 

Though the battles continue, if we come to God, we will find peace in Him.