{"id":71,"date":"2010-07-21T11:38:25","date_gmt":"2010-07-21T15:38:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pastorsblog.lakeviewhamilton.com\/?p=71"},"modified":"2010-07-21T11:38:25","modified_gmt":"2010-07-21T15:38:25","slug":"the-cheapskate-is-awakened-by-the-destroyed-and-desperate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pastorsblog.lakeviewhamilton.com\/?p=71","title":{"rendered":"The Cheapskate is Awakened by the Destroyed and Desperate!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just finished an inspiring book.\u00a0 The book is Lone Survivor <\/em> by Marcus Luttrell.\u00a0 Luttrell tells the story of his four- man SEAL team and their mission to capture or kill a Taliban leader near the Pakistani border in Afghanistan.\u00a0 Their mission goes terribly wrong and soon Luttrell is the only SEAL alive, and he is wounded and fighting for his life in the dangerous terrain of killers and goats.<\/p>\n

The book is filled with examples of courage, commitment, sacrifice and the inexpressible brotherhood of warriors.\u00a0 Luttrell pulls no punches as he deals with the rigors of SEAL training and the incredibly high wash-out rate.\u00a0 The tough training highlights the inner strength of those who press forward and graduate.\u00a0 Later he tells us about the courage of his wounded teammates fighting against impossible odds, their love for one another and their commitment to their country.\u00a0 His teammates weren\u2019t the only courageous people in the mountains.\u00a0 We learn from Luttrell about the honor and bravery of a mountain village that take him in and shelter him from the Taliban, and we experience the hate of those who killed his friends and who would kill us all if given the chance.<\/p>\n

There were times as I read that I found myself angry, then shamed by the honor and love of those selfless heroes, American and Pashtun.\u00a0 I also found myself inspired and encouraged by honorable and courageous humanity.\u00a0 I was being challenged as I read and I like that. Then it happened.<\/p>\n

You see, I can be a cheapskate.\u00a0 In fact I bought this book at a used store for half price.\u00a0 I fanned through it before I bought it to be sure it was whole and not so marked up that it would distract my reading.\u00a0 It was good and I got a bargain. \u00a0But as I read almost to the end of the book, I found a partial sentence underlined in pen. The underlined passage had to do with a conjecture that good things always have a bad side.\u00a0 As I read I slipped from the world of heroes and fell into the pit of misery that must have been the home of the previous owner.\u00a0 I wondered who could read such a story, go past all the heroism and sacrifice and zero in on one partial sentence of fatalistic and negative philosophy.\u00a0 What was this poor person like?\u00a0 How did they survive in the world?\u00a0 Did every sunrise remind them of dusk?\u00a0 Were they like some vulture who flew over the most beautiful rolling green landscape looking for some rotting death under a bush?<\/p>\n

In the SEALS and Pashtun, I found courage and faith; in the Taliban I saw blinding hatred; in the previous reader, I discovered entrenched and toxic despair.\u00a0 How tragic.\u00a0 Regardless of our circumstances, all things still work together for good to those who love Him.\u00a0 We are not as those who are without hope!<\/p>\n

Warning: Lone Survivor<\/em> is an adult book with graphic violence and language.\u00a0 Remember, I told you so!\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The book is filled with examples of courage, commitment, sacrifice and the inexpressible brotherhood of warriors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorsblog.lakeviewhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorsblog.lakeviewhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorsblog.lakeviewhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorsblog.lakeviewhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorsblog.lakeviewhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=71"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pastorsblog.lakeviewhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73,"href":"https:\/\/pastorsblog.lakeviewhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions\/73"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorsblog.lakeviewhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=71"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorsblog.lakeviewhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=71"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorsblog.lakeviewhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=71"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}