able to return to his family. He had done his time; he had paid his dues of citizen- ship in a war zone.


I recalled a thought I had once written in my journal: “Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape.” When our everyday life is wrenched into absurdity or irrelevance, we are pressed into developing strengths.


The Bible helps us understand our- selves and others. It teaches us to keep our eyes on the Shepherd and not on the sheep. It explains that we learn more about ourselves in adversity than when things are going well. Scripture shows us how we can overcome difficulties by remaining flexible as we trust in God. Isaiah 26:3 promises, “You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is stead- fast, because he trusts in you” (NIV). Experiencing and overcoming difficulty makes us aware we are stronger than we think. Paul understood this when he wrote:


We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suf- fering produces perseverance; persever- ance, character; and character, hope (Romans 5:1-4 NIV).


Persecutions, beatings, and arrests were not what Jesus’ followers had envi- sioned. James and John talked about who would sit where in heaven, yet James was the first of the Twelve to die as a martyr, while John was exiled to the island of Patmos. They both discovered that this earth may be a prison for a short time (considering eternity), but it is not a life sentence. Our existence on this spinning ball of clay is merely a warm-up for the main event.


Christians must keep everything in proper focus. The world has not always been the way it is today, and it will change again tomorrow—probably in some ways we won’t be enthused about. Yet these changes will always match God’s timetable perfectly.


At some point, there will be stubborn, teeth-grinding difficulty in most of our


A medical-evacuation helicopter prepares to land at Hawk Hill aid station pad, south of Da Nang, in early 1970.


lives—moments when our misery index will shoot through the roof. But it is essential to keep things in perspective. As we mature in Christ, we under- stand the great potential and possibilities He has placed within our grasp. As He works, new opportunities open to us. However, these opportunities are often blown our way on the winds of crisis. While in Vietnam (1969-1970), I flew 987 medical-evacuation missions for 2,533 patients on both sides of the fighting. I took enemy fire in seven aircraft and was shot down twice in those 12 months. On August 21 and 22, 1969, in less than 24 hours, my crew had two helicopters shot up and our medic, John Seebeth, was machine- gunned in the throat. I held his legs while a tracheotomy was performed without anesthetic.


On September 13, I was shot down for the first time after four American infantrymen were evacuated from a land- ing zone surrounded by enemy forces. Although our jet engine, both cyclic controls, and oil lines had been shot up or shot away, God helped me to land our plane safely.


On Christmas morning, I was shot down for the second time, taking 19 hits in my aircraft during a supposed cease- fire period negotiated in Paris. Half an hour later, we climbed into another heli- copter and went back to the same land-


ing zone—again under fire—to complete our mission of evacuating nine seriously wounded South Vietnamese soldiers who had been attacked in their isolated out- post on Barrier Island.


Then, in early January 1970, while evacuating seven wounded American infantrymen from an enemy minefield, I set one of our skids on two mines, neither of which detonated. There were other similar situations too numerous to men- tion here.


After each crisis, I immediately forced myself to get back into the cockpit and fly so I wouldn’t lose my nerve and so I could retain my flexibility. In each instance, God gave me the strength to ful- fill this commitment to people who were hurting far more than myself. When it is your turn to be the point person in life and to pick your way through the minefields and ambushes that arise, don’t despair. God is still bigger than anything that can happen along the way. Some 2,000 years ago in Bethlehem, “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us . . . full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). This truth has sustained every succeeding generation of Christians dur- ing difficult and dangerous times. Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape.


Robert B. Robeson lives in Lincoln, Nebraska.


EVANGEL • AUG 2010 25


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