WEEKLY WORD: Heroes are made before their heroic acts

By Pastor Matthew Lucio  |   Charles City Seventh Day Adventist Church

We think that Desmond Doss was a hero because he saved 75 American soldiers’ lives in World War II.

While that feat led to him receiving the Medal of Honor (and made him the subject of the new Mel Gibson picture, “Hacksaw Ridge”), that wasn’t what made him a hero.

When he was wounded by a grenade, he was carted off on a stretcher. Seeing another man wounded, Doss, a combat medic, rolled off the stretcher, patched up the wounded man, and put him on the stretcher. But that’s not what makes Desmond Doss a hero.

It is more accurate to say that it was because Doss already was a hero that he saved 75 men or helped the wounded man onto his stretcher. Doss had long before resolved to stand firm to one principle in particular: He wanted nothing to do with guns. That may seem like a strange principle in someone who volunteered for the army, but it was the way Doss felt he could best be faithful to God. No guns. No killing.

Naturally, Doss’s unit was never enthusiastic about his principles. They wanted to know that the man next to them would shoot. That’s the best way to stay alive. They made his life hell. They court-martialed him. They mistook his principles for cowardice.

You may not agree with his strict interpretation of the sixth commandment. He wouldn’t have judged you for that. This was his stand, and if he hadn’t stood firm in basic training, he never would have stood firm on the battlefield. While others were being trained to look for someone to shoot, Doss was training himself to look for someone to save. He was a hero simply by staying true to his principles. What happened in the heat of battle was Desmond being who he had prepared himself to be. If he had a gun, he wouldn’t be looking for the wounded, but for the enemy.

There are no accidental heroes. The quiet decisions you make shape you. But we can’t show that on the movie screens. Captain America didn’t become strong through weight lifting and a good diet, he was injected with a miracle serum. Poof! But we know life doesn’t work that way. Getting in shape or losing weight takes tremendous self-discipline and time. It’s hard. Becoming fulfilled, mature, impressive men and women takes work. We often want the shortcuts.

In this age, we like to sound busy, because busy people must be important. Or we seek trophies. Surely getting some gold on our dresser will show that we’re important! Or it’s money. (Oh, how often it’s money!) We are constantly seeking significance in things beneath our dignity, but Desmond Doss proclaims a better, more biblical way: Stand for principles bigger than ourselves.

Train yourself to be kind even when you feel mean.

Train yourself to be faithful in the little things.

Train yourself to believe in the face of doubt.

Train yourself to tell the truth, especially when it’s too your hurt.

Train yourself to trust the invisibility of God.

We desperately need men and women who will be intentional about forming a hero’s heart. And in order to do this, we have to be real about what it takes to be a hero. It’s not the cape. It’s not the superpowers. It’s not even the saving of lives. What makes you a hero is in standing, standing, standing strong for these principles.

Will you catch hell for it from others? Absolutely. That’s the fire that forges you.

Will those convictions be tested? Naturally. But this is the only way.

Who is Jesus without the cross? Daniel without the lions? Job without … well, basically everything. You don’t really have principles until they’ve been tested, and if we want to be people of character, we need to stand through the testing.

Desmond Doss, like everyone, wasn’t perfect. I met him in 2004, shortly before he died. He was a faithful Seventh-day Adventist Christian his whole life, and when we met I was studying to be an Adventist pastor. He inspired me to stand a little taller.

He was as skinny as a toothpick. His hearing was all but gone, and so his voice sounded a bit like the plucking of a guitar string. He was short, too. I looked down to talk to him. There was nothing about him that commanded attention, except that blue ribbon around his neck: the Medal of Honor. I saw it with my own eyes. That Medal suggested there was more to him on the inside than I could tell on the outside. I shook the man’s hand, and even though I was looking down to see him, I felt like I was looking up to him.

He was a man of character. He suffered for it. He prevailed because of it. You can, too.

“My brothers and sisters, consider it nothing but joy when you fall into all sorts of trials, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect effect, so that you will be perfect and complete, not deficient in anything.”

James 1:2-4 NET.