III – Be

Secure Your Base (Your Soul)

Portrait of Carl von Clausewitz19th-century military strategist Carl von Clausewitz was a Prussian general who fought against Napoleon. In 1832, his book On War was published and military experts regard it even today as the definitive study of warfare.

In the novel Dr. No, Ian Fleming writes, “Clausewitz’s first principle was to have a secure base. From there one proceeds to freedom of action.” Fleming’s paraphrase of the famous war strategist’s philosophy is worth adopting. Securing your base means establishing a self-sustaining, shock-resistant “headquarters” that’s well-defended against disruptions from external forces.

In a letter written to his son, Gen. George S. Patton said, “Defeat is not due to losses but to the destruction of the soul of the leaders.”

For the SemperVerus Brotherhood, a secure base begins with a strong, healthy soul that directs your moral compass. Keep Psalm 73:26 (“Maybe my mind and body will become weak, but God is my source of strength. He is mine forever!”) before you in order to accomplish 1 Corinthians 10:13.

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Centuries ago Clausewitz wrote, “The talent of the strategist is to identify the decisive point and to concentrate everything on it, removing forces from secondary fronts and ignoring lesser objectives.”

Let’s apply his definition of strategy to the small and big decisions we make every day from the basis of securing our base:

Identify: Perceive and analyze the everyday situations you face with a worldview rooted in biblical teaching. Exercise wisdom to discern the good path from the bad path before taking action. For example, use Luke 6:31 as one of your guiding principles. In the words of the military, “intel precedes ops.”

The decisive point: Marketers call it the unique value proposition. It’s the most important, pivotal, and centralized determinant from which to organize all your decisions and actions. What’s your decisive point? How about Proverbs 4:23. And Mark 12:30-31.

Concentrate: Once your decision is made to stay true to what is right (1 Timothy 4:16) in any given situation, focus your attention on following through on it. According to military historian Basil Hart, “all the lessons of war can be reduced to a single word: concentration.” Keep looking straight ahead, without turning aside (Proverbs 4:25).

Remove: Making choices to act rightly means deciding what we will not do. Remove whatever hinders you from achieving the optimum results (Hebrews 12:1-2).

Ignore: Cultivate a disciplined mind and a steadfast character. Don’t be distracted by inferior goals. Keep your main objective to be: “staying true to what is right” (Philippians 3:13-14).

[Adapted from Von Clausewitz on War: Six Lessons for the Modern Strategist]

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Quality Self-Defense Training Builds Character

IDPA target to illustrate the importance of firearms trainingAn article in Psychology Today suggests that training seriously and responsibly for armed self-defense contributes to developing a sense of human empathy and strengthens human character.

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The article’s author, David Yamane, professor of sociology at Wake Forest University, writes that those who are dedicated to improving their self-defense knowledge and skills “see that it is indeed appropriate at times to use our human capacity for violence pro-socially, in defense of self, loved ones, children, the weak and infirm, and other innocents. Gun Culture 2.0, to borrow an idea from sociologist Harel Shapira, sees defensive violence as ‘civilized’ rather than barbaric.”

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SemperVerus and the Way of the Wise

The Way of the Wise illustrationThe pastors of Ada Bible Church, Grand Rapids, MI—senior pastor Jeff Manion and teaching pastor Aaron Buer—delved into the Bible book of Proverbs for their multi-Sunday sermon series, The Way of the Wise. This series unpacks Proverbs and explains how it presents a path toward a wise life by challenging us to make the right small (and large) decisions every day so that we eventually end up our lives at the right destination.

Contributing to our spiritual fitness, it’s exactly the message of SemperVerus to stay true to what is right with every decision we make throughout every day. We encourage you to carve out time to watch all the sermons in the series to benefit from the wise teachings of Proverbs.

As an example, here’s the video of sermon #10 in the series, “100 Steps in the Right Direction.”

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The Greatest Man…

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“The greatest man is he who chooses right with invincible resolution, who resists the sorest temptation from within and without, who bears the heaviest burdens cheerfully; who is calmest in storms, and most fearless under menaces and frowns; whose reliance on truth, on virtue, on God, is most unfaltering.”

—19th-century cleric William Ellery Channing

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Be Like Ernest Shackleton

Leadership Lessons from Ernest ShackletonIn August 1914 Ernest Shackleton sailed with 27 men from England to the Antarctic continent with the goal of being the first to cross Antarctica—the land with the coldest temperature ever recorded on earth: minus 128.6 degrees—via the South Pole. Early in 1915 their ship, Endurance, became trapped in pack ice, and ten months later was crushed and sank. Shackleton’s crew had already abandoned the ship to live on floating ice in the most hostile place in the world.

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In April 1916 they set off in three cramped leaky open lifeboats for a 17-day, 800-mile journey in stormy seas, eventually reaching a jutting rock called Elephant Island. Taking five crew members, Shackleton went to find help. Again in a small open boat, the six men spent 16 days crossing another 800 miles of swirling frigid ocean to reach South Georgia island and then, with a pocket compass, trekked across two snowfields, four glaciers, and three mountain ranges to a remote whaling station. The remaining men from the Endurance were rescued in August 1916. Not one member of the expedition died, a two-year feat of magnificent unparalleled leadership.

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Buy the book Endurance through this affiliate link with AmazonIn his memoir, Endurance, Frank Worsley, the captain of the Endurance, wrote this about his leader:

He was not only a great explorer; he was also a great man….And what of him as a man? I recalled the way in which he had led his party across the ice-floes after the Endurance had been lost; how, by his genius for leadership he had kept us all in health; how, by the sheer force of his personality, he had kept our spirits up; and how, by his magnificent example, he had enabled us to win through when the dice of the elements were loaded most heavily against us.

Buy the book Summoned to Lead through this affiliate link with AmazonAccording to the book Summoned to Lead by Leonard Sweet,

“The story of the Endurance expedition has a postmodern feel. Shackleton was a man clearly of his time, but a man also clearly living before his time. He combined the prophetic and priestly functions of leadership. He reached out to where his crew was (priest) and reached out to where his crew was not but needed to go (prophetic). He could ‘tell it like it is,’ but was willing to tell it like it is not but ought to be. Reaching people where they are is how leaders form relationships. But reaching people where they are not is how leaders form hope for ‘what you can be’ and help construct an imaginary future toward which people can direct their steps.”

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The SemperVerus Brotherhood / Sisterhood seeks to model the accomplished leadership virtues of Ernest Shackleton who remained positive even in supreme strife amid heaving waters.

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