Without a Weapon

In Mel Gibson's 2016 film Hacksaw Ridge, Army medic Desmond Doss refused to carry a gun. Mocked by his unit, threatened with court-martial, he stood firm — not out of cowardice, but conviction. He believed the Almighty had called him not to kill. The Army didn't know what to do with him. His fellow soldiers didn't either.

Then came Okinawa.

Atop a four-hundred-foot escarpment called Hacksaw Ridge, the bloodiest engagement of the Pacific theater unfolded. When the unit was ordered to retreat, Doss stayed behind — alone, under fire, surrounded by the fallen. One by one, he dragged wounded men to the cliff's edge and lowered them down on a rope, praying the same desperate words into the smoke and chaos: Lord, help me get one more.

He saved seventy-five men that night. The soldier they had called a coward received the Medal of Honor.

Here is the paradox at the heart of obedience: what looks like weakness to the world is often the very shape that faithfulness takes. Doss didn't obey because he could see the outcome. He obeyed because he trusted the One who called him.

Jesus said, "If you love me, keep my commandments." Obedience isn't about following a rulebook — it's about trusting a Person. When God asks something of us that the world finds foolish, He is not setting a trap. He is handing us a rope and asking us to hold on.