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5 Things I learned from a Navy Seal

I had the privilege to sit and listen to the testimony of a Navy Seal from Seal Team 1.  I am speaking of Chad Williams who served this great nation from 2004 to 2010 and had 1 aspiration in life after reflecting on many of his failures in his young life and that was to be a Navy Seal.

The five things I took away from that teaching was:

  1. Perseverance, drive, preparation and proper mentoring will put you in a position of success in the goal you are trying to achieve.
  2. There will be hurdles and speed bumps on your way to test your integrity and your faith in yourself to complete the task at hand. Chad’s mentor who prepared him to be a seal was used in 2004 as a memento if you will for the war in Fallujah by the Taliban as a message to the United States.
  3. Achieving that goal and getting to where you thought the end all be all would make you king of the world is the loneliest place to be and you feel emptier than you did prior to your journey because your natural instinct is “what’s next?”
  4. Being in the “perfect” place and the “perfect” time is never the work of man but the work of Jesus Christ. Jesus has a plan for you and the circumstances he has put you through are stepping stones to what He is going to do next.
  5. In order to be used by the Lord one must put his pride aside and listen to the voice of God as is reflected in 2 Kings 5:1-14 which reflects on Naaman a commander of the Army of the king of Syria who was an honorable man and mighty man of valor but a leper. Naaman received a message from Elisha saying to go and wash in the Jordan river 7 times and your flesh will be restored to you and you shall be clean.  Naaman became angry because the Lord did not come and heal him.  It took his servants to talk some sense into him asking him a simple question if a prophet asked him to do something great he probably would have done it.  So why will he not heed the direction action and go and wash and be clean?  He finally did and dipped in the Jordan 7 times and his flesh was restored.

We all want to do great things and be accomplished but sometimes the little instructions are hard to do because pride gets in the way.  Pride must be set aside to be a man of God and I urge all that true leadership is a prideless, humble inquiry into your God given gifts and talents while simultaneously executing them quietly as NOT to be tempted by the fanfare, success or money.