Why “Stand TO!”?

It’s late. Or more like early now, as midnight has already come and gone. You’ve been up all night, moving, advancing, your platoon making its careful way across rough terrain, always alert for signs of the enemy lurking somewhere out there in the gloom. Finally, after what seems like days but was really only hours, you arrive at the rally point and dig in for the night.

With a hasty fighting position dug and your fields of fire laid out in front of you, the word comes down…set the watch, get some chow, and get some rest.

The fatigue you held at bay all day finally rushes in and settles in your knees, your back, your shoulders. You lean back and grab an MRE (meals – ready to eat) and chow down on some chili macaroni or chicken-ala-something-or-other, spooning it in without really tasting it as your half-lidded eyes struggle to stay open long enough to get the calories your body so desperately needs into you.

With that done, you do a quick wipe down of your weapon, stack an extra magazine or two at hand, and thank whatever God you serve that you didn’t draw the mid-watch. For now, at least, you can finally get some much-needed shut-eye.

In the space of a breath or two you are out, sleeping the sleep of the dead, your body marshalling its energy for the day ahead. But for now, sleep.

Then in what seems like the flash of but a moment, you hear the call, “Stand TO!”

Sleep vanishes in an instant as your eyes snap open. You lean forward, getting your bearings, and see the first hints of light teasing at the horizon. This is it, that gray time between night and true dawn when the shadows are the deepest, when what little light there is becomes more harm than help. 

It’s the time most likely for the enemy to attack, hoping to catch you sleeping or distracted with coffee or breakfast or some other task. When you’re still groggy or inattentive. 

But not today, enemy. Not today. The call of “stand to!” means just that — all hands man your positions. Be up, in your holes, helmet on, gear secured, weapon oriented down-range, eyes and ears to maximum alertness, the whole platoon on the line and ready.

Stand To. Man your guns. Come into that place of full awakening. Full alertness. Completely present and focused on the mission at hand.

That’s why I have named this blog “Stand To!”  I want it to be a call to action, the beginning of an awakening, a message to pass down the line from man to man to cast off the bleary fatigue and numbing distractions of the day-to-day life in which we so often find ourselves mired, and Stand TO! 

Step up. Stand up. Gear up. Eyes front, shoulders into our weapons, senses alive and on fire, vigilant and watching for whatever is out in front of us. Clear on our mission, watchful for anything that would come against it. 

Ready. Prepared. Energized. Awakened. Aware. Alive. Alight. 

Activated. Passionate. Driven. Focused. Moving with a sense of purpose, on purpose, shoulder to shoulder with our brothers in arms.

Because I believe that is what we are all here for…to shine the light that burns within us into the world around us. God put that light in us. Before we were even born He crafted us on purpose, for a purpose in order to fulfill a divinely-designed destiny.

For a lot of us, though, that light has become a flicker, barely alight, the wick turned so low that it’s really more of a fitfully-glowing ember than a true flame.  So it’s time to turn up the wick! Fan it into flames, to come alive and alight shining with the unique and awesome brilliance which God hard-wired into you from the start. 

It is time to Stand To.

There are so many things in this world that can dim our flame; the cutting, critical words of others, the callous disregard of a family member or co-worker, the “thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to” that weigh us down, that settle into our bones, our joints, our heart, until our half-lidded eyes struggle to stay open and all we want to do is sleep.

But you can’t sleep your life away. It’s time to arise, to awaken to the glory of who and what you are, to awaken to the majesty that God built into you and IGNITE that light and power and purpose that has lain dormant for far too long. 

The time is now. To rise up. To wake up. To stand up, and…

…to STAND TO!!