Heaven’s Heartbeat - Hard Fought Hallelujah
It’s funny the things you remember. Just before one of the most miserable moments of my life, I have a crystal-clear memory of my beautiful surroundings that day.
The red-clay hills around Fort Knox, Kentucky, were covered with dogwood and redbud trees in full glorious bloom. Blossoms of pink, ivory, and brilliant purple dancing in the humid air. It was a beauty I’d never known or even imagined back in the dry farmlands of southeastern Washington. All of my senses quickened.
But there was no time to appreciate the landscape. In that moment my eyes were locked on three drill instructors who were about to introduce my platoon to a rite of passage that would test our mettle, and our ability to trust our gear.
The DI’s barked orders as we filed into a nondescript concrete building, the air already thick with nerves and Kentucky humidity. We fumbled with our M17 protective masks, sealing them tight as we knew how over our faces. I still remember the rubbery smell, the fogging lenses, the restricted breaths—and the pounding of my heart. We shuffled into the adjoining chamber, a dimly-lit room that reeked of impending doom.
The DI’s sharp order came through a sudden billowing haze: “Masks off! Recite the alphabet—loud and clear—or you stay!”
One man at a time we ripped off the masks, and instantly regretted it. The CS gas, commonly called tear gas, evokes an immediate, visceral assault on the senses and the body. Your eyes burn with an unrelenting fire, tears streaming uncontrollably as if your very soul is weeping. Your throat constricts, choking on the acrid fumes. Every breath feels like inhaling shards of glass. Coughing racks your frame, disorientation sets in, and a primal panic urges escape. The irritation quickly builds—a pervasive torment that no amount of blinking or gasping can dispel. It’s not mere discomfort; it’s a chemical invasion that hijacks your physiology, exposing how fragile we are in a hostile environment.
“A... B... C...” I gasped, voice cracking, face flushing deep crimson as if scorched by the sun. The room spun in a blurry hell—coughs wracking my body, spit flecking the floor, snot streaming. Letters blurred into oblivion; some recruits stumbled, others retched.
Finally, “Z!” and I bolted for the exit, bursting into the blessed spring air like a drowning man among drowning men, surfacing for fresh air. Red-faced with eyes burning behind swollen slits, we hacked and spat on the grass, forging something deep in shared misery.
The DIs (of course) chuckled as they commended our success.
As a young soldier in boot camp, this ordeal and many similar pushed me to grow. It taught resilience and focus in the fire. It was real—but only training. No bullets. No bombs. No blood. Just young bodies pushed to limits beyond our experience.
To me, it’s an analogy of what everyday people and families face in the spiritual realm. There may not be physical bullets, but it is a battle all the same.
It’s not like a war; it IS a war.
It’s a spiritual irritation many Christians feel amid today’s chaos: endless wars, crumbling morals, twisted norms, raging disasters, ultra-divisive politics, and a godless fog choking the air.
Have you felt the sting?
Spiritual eyes burn with grief over injustice and evil. Faith’s throat tightens under doubt and fear of attack. Breaths come short, strangled by a culture that mocks truth.
Like standing in a room full of tear gas, there’s no quick fix that clears it fully. And it has a way of capturing all of your attention from God’s beauty that is all around you.
Scripture captures this exact tension in Romans 8:19-22 (ESV), where Paul personifies creation itself as enduring a tear-gas-like torment under the curse of sin:
For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.
In these lines of Scripture, the apostle describes the entire cosmos as “groaning together in the pains of childbirth.” We’re not talking about a gentle sigh, here, but a profound wrenching agony—a world in travail amid hostility that can choke the very breath from our lungs. The spiritual air grows thick and corrosive, evoking tears for the lost and a fierce yearning for escape.
Yet we press on raising our voices in triumphant hallelujah to Jesus, a defiant act of faith that pierces the darkness with a mighty rushing wind of the Holy Spirit! We are not merely reciting the alphabet; we proclaim that Jesus, the Alpha and Omega, holds sovereign rule over our fractured realm. Evil's roar will not have the last word.
Will you join me? Inhale deeply, and together let us exalt: Hallelujah!
