Being personally resilient is about being healthy – and being healthy is more than the absence of illness.

Good health is about notions of well-being and resilience – and resilience helps if you are deployed to an area of operations, either in a declared war zone or on a peacekeeping mission.

Being a resilient person means that you are better able to ‘spring back’ from a difficult or traumatic moment.

The Macquarie Dictionary defines Resiliency as:

1. Resilient power; elasticity.
2. resilient action: rebound, recoil,
3. power of ready recovery from sickness, depression, or the like; buoyancy; cheerfulness.

There are many things that can happen to you in the abnormal situation of an area of operations. These things can shake or destroy your faith in God. Alternatively, these events could, for some, strengthen their faith.

Facing danger and death, and the effects of what some human beings do to others often affect the way we look at the world. We can gain a new sense of what is truly important. However, traumatic events can cause some to feel like they are in a spiritual vacuum.

Our advice is Be prepared, by becoming spiritual fit well before you enter an area of operations.

Being spiritually fit is a lifestyle choice. Once in an area of operations, maintain your spiritual fitness as best you can in the circumstances that you find yourself.

Never forget the promise that Jesus gave to his disciples ‘I am with you always, to the end of the age.’ (Matthew 28:20)

What do we mean by being Spiritually Fit?

‘Spirituality’ as a word means different things to different people. Christian resilience, however, depends on developing strong relationships – with our Lord Jesus Christ, and with fellow Christians.

Being spiritual then starts with knowledge – knowledge of both yourself and God.

Get to know your soul – What is important to you? What are those nagging feelings? Is there an underlying irritability or restlessness beneath the surface of your life? Do you sense the presence of God?

Get to know God. Paul in the bible advises that we all should be “transformed by the renewing of [our] minds, so that [we] may discern what is the will of God.” (Romans 12:2) He says that doing this is our spiritual worship (Romans 12:1)

When we use the word ‘Spirituality’ we mean the connections between humans and God. We also use the word ‘Spirituality’ to refer to the meaning of life: or what is truly important in life

Some common expressions of spirituality are:

• A focus on life’s meaning and importance.
• A focus on values, beliefs and ethics.
• An awareness of life beyond yourself.
• A connection between you, others, and God.
• A focus on reflecting on life, and a sense of “deep self” or soul.

What is Spiritual Fitness?

For most people, spiritual fitness means having a set of beliefs and values that guide them and give their life meaning. Spiritually fit people tend to have a stronger self-esteem, better coping skills, and more solid relationships. Spiritual fitness can also bond people through love, forgiveness and compassion.

You gain spiritual fitness by:

• Reading the Bible
• Praying
• Meeting with other Christians to talk about God and the Christian Life
• Engaging in Christian Worship.

Some Christians add to the depth of their Christian life by:

• Fasting
• Going on pilgrimages

What does the Bible say?

The word ‘resilience’ does not appear in the Bible. However, the concept of being strong in the Lord does.

Here are some key verses:

• Psalm 31:24 So be strong and courageous, all you who put your hope in the Lord!
• 1 Corinthians 15:58 So, my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and immovable. Always work enthusiastically for the Lord, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless.
• Romans 1:11 For I long to visit you so I can bring you some spiritual gift that will help you grow strong in the Lord.
• Ephesians 6:10 A final word: Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.

You can glean from these bible verses that our God desires that we remain strong in him. There are ideas of intentionality and relationship.

In an Area of Operations (including a War Zone)

Being in an Area of Operations, especially if that area is a war zone is an abnormal area to be in. Maintaining Christian Resilience is going to take an extra degree of personal intent and discipline.

Our practical advice is to remain connected to God, to others and to family and friends. It would be easy not to attend to these relationships, so we would urge you to give special attention to these matters in much the same way as you would give attention to your kit, weapon and other aspects of your daily routine.

• Take time to read your Bible. Your chaplain will be able to give you a light weight version, or an extract from the bible.
• Take time to pray.
• Try and meet with other Christians. Often your Chaplain will run a bible study group or a field chapel service. These won’t be the same as you would have at home, but will be tailored to your circumstance.
• Finally, get to know your chaplain who is there to support you.

It was 3 am. I sat in the sandbagged bunker guarding the entrance to the 400 year old Portuguese fort in Balibo, East Timor. Behind me nearly 100 Australian soldiers were sleeping peacefully.

I was dressed in full camouflage battle dress, Kevlar flack jacket, and helmet. I rested the minimi machine gun in the crook of my shoulder and peered sleepily out through my night vision goggles at the Timorese village below.

Suddenly I sat bolt upright and elbowed the soldier next to me. There was movement. A man was running fast towards the entrance to the fort. In his hand was a long dark shape that could only be an assault rifle.

I slipped the safety catch of the machine gun to fire, put the man in the centre of the sights and rested my finger on the trigger. This was real life situation that faced me in 2001. But as a Christian soldier could I really pull the trigger? Could I really kill another human being?

For me, this decision had been made long before this event, and it had been a relatively simple one for the reasons that I will give below. However, I have lived and worked with Christian pacifists in the military who have held that force is always and everywhere wrong and that to pull that trigger would be to violate the ethical teachings of Jesus.

While very rare, this view does exist – especially in soldiers, sailors and airmen who are converted while serving. A close friend of mine was converted in his final year at the Australian Defence Force Academy.

I remember him struggling painfully with his chosen career as a seaman officer in the Navy and his reading of the sermon on the mount. In the end he resigned. For him the taking of life was clearly incompatible with his new Christian faith.

This ethical conviction has an honourable pedigree. St Martin of Tours
was a Roman soldier who was converted whilst serving in the Army.

As a Christian he insisted: “I am a soldier of Christ; I am not allowed to fight.” Martin was still forced to come against the enemy, but stood quietly in the front lines of a pitched battle against the barbarians with his shield lowered and his sword by his side.

That takes a special brand of courage. So impressed were his superiors that when the enemy attack was defeated Martin was permitted to discharge from the army.

Most Christian soldiers, however, hold to the view that force is not always and everywhere wrong. If used in certain situations and within prescribed limits the taking of another life – while regrettable – is hardly a harrowing issue of conscience. ‘We are soldiers’, the reasoning goes, ‘there have been many Christian soldiers in both Old and New Testaments.

Nowhere are they condemned for their professions and told “to leave their life of sin”. In fact Jesus commends the faith of a Roman army officer in terms of the highest praise (Lk 7:9). So whatever is the meaning of Jesus’ teaching on non violence, consistency suggests that serving as a soldier is acceptable in the eyes of Christ.’

I strongly identify with this position. David was perhaps the greatest soldier of the Bible; a man with a great deal ofblood on his hands. He is also a man after God’s own heart. A man who sets in train a typology which will be fulfilled in part in the first coming of the King Jesus and then finally in his second coming as the great warrior of the book of revelation.

If Yahweh is frequently described as ‘the Lord of Hosts’ (Yahweh shevaout) and the incarnate son is also a mighty warrior, then the taking of life in battle is not something to lose a great deal of sleep over.

But how can this positive view of soldiers be reconciled with Jesus’ teaching on turning the other check? Martin Luther put forward what he described as the ‘two realms’ in regard to the ethical teaching of Jesus: the realm of the individual and the realm of the state.

In the realm of the individual the teaching of Jesus in the sermon of the mount must be applied, we cannot escape it. But it cannot be applied so directly to the realm of the state to which all citizens willingly or unwillingly delegate their responsibility for law and order and defence.

If the teaching of Jesus applied to both realms then putting people in prison would be against his teaching, as would be preventing a rape, the police defending themselves in the course of their duty, or SAS counter terrorism soldiers stopping by force a terrorist attack that could kill thousands of innocent people.

The two realms idea also makes much better sense of passages like Romans 13: 3-5 .Paul says the authorities ‘bear the sword’, that is have armies and police forces, and that in so doing they are agents of God.

It seems that the New Testament expects different behaviour from individuals than it does from legitimate authorities who are responsible before God for the maintenance of law and order, and, if necessary, the taking of life. ‘It is not for nothing that they bear the sword’. (Rom 13:4)

I believe that force is only acceptable within certain limites and clearly prescribed rules – even for soldiers in combat. As such I am an advocate of just war. Fortunately, the recent history of Australian armed intervention has, in the main, made my ethical position much easier by largely conforming with this position.

For the Australian soldier, the taking of life is strictly as a last resort and the rules surrounding it are clearly outlined and constantly reinforced. In East Timor, for example, life could only be taken if reasonable grounds existed that the ‘enemy’ presented a threat to ones own life or the lives of others. An example of the extent to which these rules were enforced occurred just before I arrived in 2001. A group of militia had approached an Australian border post at night, attacked the post with a shower of grenades and then turned and ran back across the border.

The unwounded Australian soldiers had their laser night sights fixed on the backs of the retreating militia. None fired. Why? Because, as they later testified, ‘the retreating militia no longer presented a direct threat’. Even in a more difficult combat operation like Afghanistan, force can only be used under strictly prescribed limits.

It is also worth adding that to read Jesus’ teaching as demanding strict pacifism has some very serious ethical problems of its own.

Many Christian pacifists believe in police forces and militaries, are happy to pay taxes that go to supporting them, but personally refuse to serve in them. That seems to me to be a first order cop out.

Let’s take East Timor for example. I saw there the barbarism and horror that had been perpetrated on innocent people on a massive scale. There was a house only thirty metres from the fort where I worked for 7 months. It was called the kissing house. We were told that young Timorese girls would be taken from their homes by militia, raped, then taken out and shot.

If you are a Christian pacifist, you will not lift a finger directly to help people who suffer like this. And if you do encourage a peace keeping force to help them then you are asking others to do your dirty work, work that you believe is immoral. Which is the greatest evil?  In my view sometimes standing by and watching evil run its course is ethically more reprehensible than using force and taking life to stop it.

I have never doubted that serving in the military, carrying a rifle and being prepared to use it, was something with which God was pleased. For all these reasons, I confidently put my finger on the trigger and prepared to shoot and kill the man running towards me with a clear conscience.

But you probably want to know the end of the story?  It turned out that the man was one of our Timorese interpreters returning late and in a hurry after an extended sing along in the village. He was carrying a black guitar case.

One Sunday after our church service, before my husband and I had children, a man about the same age told us and another Navy couple that it wasn’t right for a husband and father to be away as much as being a member of Defence required.

His boldness left me speechless and I could only stand there opening and closing my mouth like a gold fish.

Now that I have three children, do I think there is any truth to what he said?

Let’s look to what the Bible says about parenting. There are smaller passages about the importance of discipline but the longest passage that I looked at about parenting advice is found in Proverbs Chapter 4. The introduction to Proverbs in my student NIV Bible says that the “central message of Proverbs applies to anyone, old or young: ‘Get wisdom at all costs’”.

The first nine chapters are spoken from father to son, and just as the introduction told us to expect, Chapter 4 verse 5 says, “Get wisdom, get understanding; do not forget my words or swerve from them”.

What is this wisdom that we are to get? According to the last verse of Psalm 111, it is the fear of the Lord.

You may not be surprised to know that the Bible is quite silent on how much time you should spend with a child helping them to gain this wisdom and fear of the Lord.

I think this is where a combination of knowing your children and common sense comes into play.

For a start, gone are the days when the odd timed phone call and intermittent letters were the only method of communication.

Skype brings our Defence Force members into our homes, even if they are half a world away. But sometimes it isn’t enough.

When my husband was last on a ship, he was away for more than half of those two years.

My mother-in-law sends a
generous amount of money to each of our children for their birthdays and during this posting we introduced the rule that this money could only be spent on an experience rather than toys.

Each of our children therefore spent wonderful adventures alone with their dad (such as going to the zoo) and clung to those memories during his absence.

Despite this time together though, towards the end of the posting our children were showing signs of stress at the amount of time they were apart from their dad and

I’m not sure what would have happened had it been for any longer.

That posting has been followed by several years of togetherness and relative calm. Some might say it was a coincidence that my husband was at a more stable part of his career and was therefore offered jobs that allowed us this calm.

But knowing that God has our best interests at heart, we believe that we prayed for the well-being of our family and God provided just what we needed.

I think pride in our achievements, rather than deployments, is a greater threat to our families – a topic for another post.

Maree Sirois is a spouse of a current serving member of the Navy. She is passionate about military families and the author of Commanding the Home Front: True stories from  the families who support the modern-day Australian Defence Force, published by Echo Books.

Maree and Mark have belonged to several churches throughout Mark’s Navy service, including St. Andrew’s Anglican Church Lane Cove (Sydney) and Christ Church Anglican Mandurah. They currently attend Stromlo Christian Church (Canberra).

You can hear an ABC Canberra interview with Maree and find links to purchase her book here.