Why I Want to Be A Chaplain

This blog post is an essay that I wrote for my admission to Chaplain Basic Officer Leadership Course. The prompt was to write a 2-page essay on why I want to be a chaplain in the U.S Army. While this is a very brief overview of my calling to chaplaincy I believe that it can help my readers have some insight into why I do what I do. Please understand that there are many more people and events that were involved in the decision to pursue chaplaincy. Perhaps you were a part of it and don't see your name mentioned. Know that my path towards chaplaincy is part of a much bigger story in the life God has given me and you play a special role in it and I can't thank you enough for being a part of it.

Quick Note: I believe that it is improbable to truly be certain of God's "calling" for your life, but I believe that you can move forward confidently that you are following God's will and are pleasing Him with your life when you 1) can look back and see God maneuvering the circumstances of your life around this "calling" despite various obstacles that would prevent it from otherwise happening, 2) wise Christian council in your life has repeatedly affirmed that you are glorifying God by pursuing that calling, and 3) your foremost desire in pursuing that calling is to glorify God and not yourself. Even with all these 3 things present we can still be wrong about what God's desires are for our lives, but we can know that if we step out in obedience God's will, will in fact be done.

Being an Army chaplain is not just something I desire, but I believe is a calling by God. The Lord has radically changed my life. Not only has He changed me in this life, but He has given me hope in His son Jesus who died on the cross for my sins and has promised me life eternal. This profound story that I call the Gospel is the basis for all that has led to me becoming a chaplain candidate in the U.S Army.

CH Arnold, who was a candidate at the time I met him, was one of the two regiment chaplains while I was at Advanced Camp at Fort Knox in 2017. He told me something that has truly stuck with me since my time at Cadet Summer Training. He said, “There’s no such thing as coincidence because God’s not lazy.” It's a simple truth, but an important one. It's a truth that’s easy to forget. God is in complete control at every moment in my life, no matter the circumstance. It was something I meditated on throughout my time at CST that would eventually lead me to the decision to apply for the Chaplain Candidate Program. Everything that has happened to me in my life up this point has happened for a reason. Every good thing, every bad thing, every fond memory, every painful one. There have been ups and downs, some successes and some disappointments, but every single moment played a role in bringing me to this point and in some way has glorified God.

Retrospectively I can see the path God has led me down through the doors He has opened and the doors He has closed. If you asked me where I would be now when I was thirteen, I probably would have said something completely different than where I actually ended up. God has closed many doors, but if I have learned anything since those days it is that the doors God opens are infinitely better than the ones I had planned on walking through. The one consistent door that has remained open, by no working of my own, is the military. The branch and the route has changed numerous times based on doors opening and closing through the years, but God brought me exactly where I needed to be. In 8th grade I began to dream about joining the military and attending the U.S Naval Academy. (I am quite aware that this is a sin in the Army.) Through years of planning and preparation I was setting myself up for success with a competitive application packet. All of my identity was in my success as a student and future service member. When I received a rejection letter from the academy I was greatly distraught. A downward spiral of depression affected my grades and my relationships and it was my friend JT who invited me to church where I heard the Gospel of Christ. The pastor said, “I know there is someone here who has tried to fill the hole in their heart with world sized things. This could be your grades, career, or relationships.” For me it was all three. He said, “But the hole in your heart is a God sized hole, and He wants to fill that emptiness and take the reins on your life if you would surrender it to Him. There isn’t enough room in your heart for both Him and the world.” That day the trajectory of the course of my life shifted towards God. I resolved that everything I would do in my life would be with God’s glory as the objective.

With that new trajectory in life a lot of doors closed. But the desire to be in the military that God put on my heart did not go away. God kept that door open. While trying to figure out what I wanted to do with college, my friend introduced me to the Professor of Military Science in charge of Houston Army ROTC. After a multiple hour long interview he told me that he wanted to offer me a scholarship to attend the University of Houston in hopes that one day I would be an Army officer. I would soon learn that the Army is infinitely better than the Navy and that God knew exactly what He was doing when He slammed that door shut.

During my time at UH, God gave me a burning passion to introduce people to the Gospel

that changed my life. In a place like UH, especially in ROTC, there were so many people who desired the kind of hope God offered and desired to know that their lives had greater meaning. I became heavily involved in a student ministry called Cru (formerly Campus Crusade for Christ) and they helped me start a Bible study called Valor with ROTC where I had the opportunity to minister to cadets and introduce them to the Gospel. At the end of my sophomore year at this Bible Study I had a conversation with a cadet who was prior enlisted where he shared with me the story of how he suffered PTSD from a deployment. After sharing about how the Bible speaks about the peace that God offers him, he told me that he was glad I was going into the Army because there were people in the Army that needed to hear that message of hope. That interaction caused me to start thinking about the reasons why God might bring me to the Army.

My convictions were affirmed that summer when I went on a mission trip to East Asia where I was able to share the Gospel with people from a country closed to Christianity. At the end of the trip I knew that I couldn’t imagine spending my life doing anything other than sharing the Gospel. I realized that I had a commitment to the Army and prayed about how I would be able to pursue vocational ministry and fulfill my duty to my country. God answered those prayers at Advanced Camp that next summer. At cadet summer training God placed on my heart a desire to treat the training as a ministry opportunity. In the CST environment, fears for the future filled the hearts of cadets as they were evaluated. If they failed any evaluation throughout the training, they were told they would be sent home and disenrolled from the program, ending their Army career. In an environment like that, hope stands out. I trusted God’s plan. I knew that He had closed doors in my life before and I had confidence that His plans were far greater than I could ever imagine them to be. I was able to confidently step out in faith during the rigor of those evaluations and people were curious what drove that confidence. Through sharing that hope with those cadets, God used me to lead cadets to Christ and start a small Bible study in my platoon. I (with tounge-in-cheek) became the chaplain of second platoon. When we neared the end of training we had a branch round table to help us decide which branch of the Army we wanted to join. CH Arnold announced that there would only be one opportunity to talk about joining the chaplain corps. When he announced that anyone who desired to pursue chaplaincy needed to immediately go speak with him, I was pushed to the front. I walked with him and after that interview I was convinced that God put me in the Army to be a chaplain.

I know that God has given me gifts, talents, and a desire to minister to those who are

wounded whether physically or spiritually. He gave me a desire to share with them the hope God has given me in the Gospel and the wonderful plan He has for their lives. I know that every door He has opened and closed in my life points towards that, because just as CH Arnold said, “There’s no such thing as coincidence because God’s not lazy.”