Our Spiritual Warfare: Learning From a POW

Our world is held captive by Satan, whom the Bible calls the god of this age. Lessons learned by a prisoner of war can help us endure and overcome our enemy.

The Bible describes our Christian lives as a daily battle against selfishness and the spiritual forces of evil that dominate our world. In addition to putting on the whole armor of God, what can we do to ensure our endurance?

An example from a real-life POW

Recently, I finished reading Faith of My Fathers by senator and former presidential candidate John McCain. This memoir recounts his family’s history and his maverick passage through the U.S. Naval Academy, on through the downing of his plane in Vietnam and his 5½ years of captivity. The conditions he describes in the POW camp were deplorable.

From the senator’s comments and observations, extraordinary parallels emerged as to the type of character needed to endure as a prisoner of war.

Early training: senseless tasks and resisting persecution

During his Naval Academy years, young John McCain was oblivious to the purpose of parts of his training. He resented the rigid discipline and the many “menial tasks” the recruits were ordered to do each day, as well as the verbal abuse and humiliation they were subjected to. It seemed to have no bearing on their future assignments.

Wrong. In later summary, Sen. McCain states: “At moments of great stress, your senses are at their most acute; your mind works at a greatly accelerated pace. That’s the purpose [of the first year of Academy] ... to show that you can function exceptionally well, as a leader must function, in concentrated misery” (p. 123, emphasis added throughout).

In later years, he would uphold his father’s belief that the Academy’s methods and traditions were “more effective at imparting the cardinal virtues of leaders than the methods devised by any other human institution” (p. 59).

He himself would be put to the test.

Are we willing to submit to God’s training?

Fighting the good fight and counting the cost

In hindsight to the badly managed Vietnam War, Sen. McCain states: “No one who goes to war believes once he is there that it is worth the terrible cost of war to fight it by half measures” (p. 334). Of war in general, he says: “No other national endeavor requires as much unshakable resolve as war” (p. 335).

Paul told Timothy to “wage the good warfare” (1 Timothy 1:18) and to “endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ” (2 Timothy 2:3).

Are we committed to our own war?

A fellowship of suffering is needed to succeed

Jesus Christ warned that a “house divided against itself will not stand” (Matthew 12:25). A wartime enemy knows this tactic and will use it to its maximum.

Fraternity is so important to survival for POWs that solitary confinement excels as an ultimate punishment. While the Hanoi captives had developed elaborate tapping codes to communicate from one cell to another, isolation prevented them from doing so and often produced a complete breakdown of even the strongest individuals, leading to false confessions.

Sen. McCain states: “The strength you acquire in fraternity with others who share your fate is immeasurable” (p. 314). “It was a lot easier to defy your enemy when you [were] surrounded by fellow resisters” (p. 315).

We need the fellowship of our Christian brethren.

The greatest lesson: Keeping the big picture

Sen. McCain wrote that the greatest lesson he learned in prison was that faith in himself alone was no match for the cruelty of man. He needed “other, more important allegiances” (p. 253). He needed something “greater than self-seeking” of glory, for glory “belongs to the act of being constant to something greater than yourself, to a cause, to your principles, to the people on whom you rely, and who rely on you in return. No misfortune, no injury, no humiliation can destroy it” (p. 257).

This acutely reminds me of Romans 8:35: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?”

We need to focus on the purpose for our calling—our preparation for God’s Kingdom.

The rewards of rigorous training

What kind of commanders developed from such training and testing? Sen. McCain described one who shared his POW status as “a model commander, steady as a rock, always in control of his emotions, never excited, never despairing or self-consumed” (p. 307). His own father, he said, was “forceful, determined, clear thinking, and respectful of his men” (p. 277).

While we may not have “resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin” (Hebrews 12:4-6), “concentrated misery” can come to us in the form of severe trials. God exhorts us not to be discouraged if such times come upon us. To persevere, we, like POWs, need to keep our vision, our focus and our bonds with our God and our fellow Christians strong.

For more about the growth and change required to be a Christian, see the section on “Christian Conversion” on the LifeHopeandTruth.com website.

Nancy Diraison is an East Texas member of the Church of God, a Worldwide Association. Writing everything from music to blogs is her favorite occupation!