Transcription
I'm going to tell you why veterans are killing themselves. This is going to be raw, uncut, a different type of video than you are used to seeing on this channel. And so, here's your trigger warning right now. Going about your day if this is not for you. And if you're still here, why are veterans killing themselves? Right? You're not going to like this answer. You are not going to like this answer, but I'm going to tell you anyways. And my ask is that you watch this entire video before you comment. So, here we go.
We live in a world that is so me-focused, especially in our country, in America. Every decision we make is out of self-interest. Every advertisement that we see, everything we buy, it's all about me. We'll get positive affirmations like, "Love yourself, you're good enough, love your body." Everyone wants to remind you how awesome you are and how beautiful you are. And in our work culture, it's all about striving to be on top, getting the next promotion, getting a bonus, whatever it may be. Being the best worker you can possibly be. You know, you make more money, you get to buy things that make our life easier. We are so me-focused.
Yet, while we have all these things out of self-interest and we're living for self-interest, on the outside we're great. But on the inside, even if you don't want to admit it, we still feel alone. Sometimes in a dark place, sometimes in a really, really dark place. Although we have the world at our fingertips, we still feel alone. And in our lives, we can customize everything about ourselves. Not just on social media, but in real life, too. We only share the good things and the best photos of ourselves. And we have friends, acquaintances in the office. We have some friends, uh, socially, maybe hundreds, maybe even over a thousand friends, especially online. But in reality, no one is truly by our side, right? We have people we hang out with, but we don't really have that ride-or-die friend. Someone who's genuinely looking out for your best interest. Not because they're in it for themselves, but because they, they love you. We're missing that. And so on the outside we can be outwardly secure, but on the inside, we're insecure. It's like we're, we're crying. We're hurting from the inside. It's like we're being eroded from the inside out.
Now, this is a difficult concept, right? But we're not free. You are not free. You might think that freedom is doing whatever you want, buying whatever you want, eating whatever you want, working out or not working out whenever you want. But in reality, our culture is performative. Everything we do is for performance. "Look at me how great I am because I graduated college." Or, "Look at me how great I am because I got this promotion." Or, "Look at me, I'm being outspoken about this political issue, but not that one." Right? And reality is, we're only outspoken because we want you, really want people to see you being outspoken about that issue. And the reality is, we're not free. In fact, you are a slave. We are a slave for the things that we are living for. On top of our American me-focused, being a slave for what we live for culture. That's your everyday American.
Now, you put what veterans face daily on top of that. Right? When we leave our military service, we take off the uniform, but everything we did and everything we experience stays with us. And once, when our job meant so much, whether you were an administrator or you were in the infantry, your job truly mattered in the grand scheme of things of how our military operates as a whole. Your job, no matter how small it was, it really mattered. There was a lot of pressure, a lot of responsibility on you to be the best at your job. And in fact, you were the best at your job. And when you leave that military service, your worth, your dignity feels like it was stolen, and you just kind of get slapped by the civilian world thinking, "What happened?" You enter into civilian life, your civilian job, and you feel absolutely empty. The worth and dignity you once had is completely gone, right? It's been ripped away. And there's a reason for that, and it's because veterans identify themselves through their military service. I did the same thing, we all do. It's similar to, to give you an analogy, it's similar to watching movies, you know, where it's high school students in the 80s. All the jocks are wearing their Letterman jackets. But as they grow up and they have a family, they still live in those glory days where they were the high school football star getting all the girls. And when they grow up, their identity has been misplaced because they, they identified themselves back in the day. Then comes the deep depression, the anxiety, the feelings of being worthless. And it only gets worse from there, right? Because back in the day, I was so important, but now my life is meaningless. And that's really true for service members, for veterans. We have misplaced our identity with what we have done. Even now, when I go work in the office that I work in and I'm around my co-workers, randomly there'll be a problem, uh, we're planning for something, something's going on, people are complaining. And I'll just sit there and think to myself, "How in the world did I get here where we're talking about what snacks need to go in the fridge?" We spent 15 minutes talking about snacks that someone needs to buy to put in the fridge and keep it stocked. How did I go from being 19 years old in the Marine Corps in Afghanistan with so much responsibility on my shoulders to sitting in this office chair talking about, "Should we put Coke Zeros in the fridge or not?" You know, it's just, yet I'm, I'm, I'm comfy. I'm in an air-conditioned office. I'm dealing with very mundane tasks. And to be honest with you, it feels meaningless and worthless.
And here's the point of why I wanted to make this video here. Why are veterans killing themselves? It's actually a simple answer. Whether you believe it or not, you were created in the image of God. You have inherent worth and a divine purpose. And what has happened with our lives is that we are a slave to the things of this world. And we want to live for the next promotion thinking it's giving us freedom. But in reality, we have become slaves to the world. It's kind of like drinking sweet tea, right? This is Chick-fil-A sweet tea here. I love this thing. I can drink sweet tea for a really long time. Never drink a cup of water. I can drink this for months and months and months and years and years and years, never drinking a cup of water. And that sweet tea, it's going to taste so good every time. And because it tastes good, because it feels good, I'm going to make myself believe that it is good for me. But really, I need a water. I need water. I need something that sustains life. And what the point I'm trying to make is, veterans have been drinking from the world. That performative American culture, what we think we need, we've been drinking from the world for far too long and we've been refusing to drink from a source of which gives life. Our, our identity is not in our military service. It's actually to our detriment. Our identity is not what we do for work. Our identity, and listen to me here, our identity is not in our service-connected disabilities. And whether you believe it or not, and I'm going to say that again, whether you believe it or not, your identity is in Jesus Christ. You are a child of God. That means you are chosen. You are accepted. You are valuable. You are loved and you are forgiven. And when you have this type of identity shift and you're plugged into your local church, whichever tradition you want to roll with, what you'll find is that you belong in true, genuine, sincere community. Every week, my wife and I, uh, we go to what my church calls life groups. We all have different backgrounds. We're different ages. We have people in this, in their 70s, 30s, 40s, 50s in our life group. We all have different backgrounds, different upbringings. And to be honest with you, if it wasn't for this life group, we would never speak to each other at all because we don't have anything in common, right? But it is through our identity in Christ that we can come together with all of our different backgrounds and be there for each other when we need it most. We have people whose spouses are essentially on their deathbed. We have a couple whose teenage son has had multiple suicide attempts. All right. We've had, we've had members of our life group die and pass away. We've had some serious major issues happening. And seeing community come together and just love on a person and be there for a person. It's not like the issues being fixed, but just being there in community, weeping when they weep and rejoicing when they rejoice. There's something about that community that will hold you together, right? And we've been fed a lie that seclusion and being an introvert is a good thing. And we think so because we're so me-focused, right? Let me tell you a secret. I hate being in community. I don't like it. Sometimes it's awkward when I'm struggling with something in my life. It's awkward and difficult to open up and tell others about it. But we need it. We were created to be in community. It is part of our creation story. And so to seclude yourself and to blame it on things like, "I'm just an introvert." That is, that is a corrupt, that is a very, very red flag misunderstanding of who we are and our identity.
So veterans, listen to me here. The reasons we are killing ourselves is because we have drunk from the world and realize that the world doesn't give anything worth living for. There's no sustenance there. You know, I can drink this sweet tea all day and it's going to be good, but it's not going to sustain life. It's not. And whether you believe it or not, there is a God. His son is real. Jesus did die for you in your place. And if you believe in him, you will be saved. And the craziest part of it all, that's not even the crazy part, that's the truth. The craziest part of it all is when you fail him, he'll forgive you. Right? Because it is by faith alone, grace alone, through Jesus Christ alone, not by our works, that you are saved.
And so, what do you do with this if you made it to the end? I mean, you have some options, right? You can absolutely say, "Hey, Clay, I think you're an idiot and God's not real." And I would disagree with you on that, but that is an option you can do. Another option is, man, you've never been confronted with something like that before. Maybe you try your local church. And if you don't know, if you want help finding a local church for you, then send me an email and I will dedicate hours of my life helping whoever sends me an email and I will figure out a local church for you with whatever. If you want Baptist, Southern Baptist, if you want a restoration movement church, a Catholic church, I don't care. I just want your butt in a seat to encounter the presence of God. And I'll help you do that. Right? Or third, you're already drinking this cup of tea here, this water, I should say. You're down. Um, I would recommend you join a community, a life group. I don't know if your church has life groups or not. That's my personal favorite. It's really where iron sharpens iron, right? Going to church on Sundays isn't going to cut it. We have to, we, we, we, we were created to live in community. All right. I hope that made sense. I kind of organized my thoughts on the fly there. Um, but it's a big deal and unfortunately, it's a problem that the VA is on tab to fix. But I do believe the problem ultimately stems from the DoD. And so the VA's on the hook for it. And it's my opinion that veterans don't need another therapy. Maybe you don't need another pill. Not that counseling is a bad thing. I'm not against counseling. Maybe you don't need a mushroom or weed. Maybe you need to place your identity, find your true identity, place that in God. And two, find genuine, sincere community. I don't know how this video is going to be received, but I guess we'll find out.