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A few times I've been in ambushes. I remember one time we were doing a joint operation with the seals and I was in the lead vehicle and we got attacked with RPGs and machine gun fire, but it targeted the center of the convoy. And so being on the leading edge of the convoy, we continued to push and following our standard operating procedures. In that type of situation where we're mobile, you continue to push through the kill zone. Because getting bogged down in the kill zone is obviously not advantageous. And that's the theme of this episode of preaching to the choir. Ambush. You know what happens when you get ambushed. I remember in Special Forces training, the old timers used to tell us from Vietnam, and we hear about the tactics that in a near ambush, especially one of the best tactics is to fight through and penetrate the assault line where the bad guys are laying down with their machine guns. If you could penetrate through that and break that assault, then you have a chance. Because if you're in a kill zone, then somebody has a beat on you, you're in somebody's range fan. And it's important to understand that in an ambush you don't panic, you don't freeze, you move, you have to move. An ambush tactically is advantageous because it's sudden, it's violent, it's disorienting. I remember doing offensive training operations and tactical combat operations and setting up an ambush or three elements or assault, support by fire and security. These are the elements that make up the structure of a solid ambush. But it is violent and it is disorienting, but it's very organized. And so if you're on the receiving end of that, it is designed to overwhelm you before you can orient yourself. It's why it's so important to train and plan for contingencies, to have immediate action drills to automatically go into those immediate actions. Because those precious moments after an ambush kicks off and what you do are going to mean the difference between, in an ambush's case, life or death. In a real life scenario or catastrophe, success or failure, spiritually, emotionally, financially, life seemingly does the same thing in one phone call, in one accusation, in one diagnosis, in one betrayal of your loyalty. It's game on. Contact front, that's what we call out. If we're making contact with the enemy, why we say it out loud because we need to disseminate the situational awareness of where the enemy is, the composition of the enemy, how many, what they're made of, and the direction and distance. And here's what Inexperienced people do in an ambush. They run blindly. You might run blindly in an ambush. You hyperventilate, you don't breathe, you're not deliberate, you don't have a plan, and then you freeze. But if you're trained, you understand something different. The immediate goal and reacting to contact is not domination, it's survival and maneuver. You break contact, you find cover, you regain situation awareness and orientation, and then you flank. You maneuver, and then you re engage on your terms. Sometimes retreat. Most of the time, retreat is seen as weakness, but it's not. It's repositioning. It's upgrading your situation. It's getting a tactical advantage in your time and place of choosing. Proverbs 22:3 says the prudent see danger and take refuge. But the simple keep going and pay the penalty. Taking refuge, seeking cover, breaking contact, is not cowardice, it's actually wisdom, this personal courage running into the heat of battle. Yeah, there's a time and place, but most of the time it's not the right deliberate action. Even Jesus Christ withdrew strategically. In the gospel of Luke 5:16, it says Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. He didn't chase every confrontation. He wasn't moving to contact. He didn't react to every accusation. He repositioned. And when his enemies tried to ambush him, verbally trap him, put his back against the wall, he answered with clarity, timing, authority. Not every hit requires a counterpunch immediately. Sometimes you create space, you regain discipline, you assess, and then you counterattack. Because an ambush is designed to make you emotional by design, when you're ambushed in any way, it is designed to elicit a response emotionally. In James 1:19, it says everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. If you react in an ambush emotionally, you'll die. I've seen it. This is not passive advice. This is counter ambush tactics. Slow the emotion, control your reactions, and reclaim the initiative in a time or place of your choosing. If you look at King David when Saul hunted him, David was an anointed king, yet he ran. He withdrew into caves, he maneuvered and wilderness terrain. And he refused premature confrontation. Why? Because survival precedes victory. And sometimes God allows the ambush not to destroy you, but to teach you through experience the tactics. And sometimes God uses the ambush to expose where you're undisciplined, where you overextended, and where you relied on comfort instead of preparation. The ambush reveals gaps in your game, and gaps can be closed. Some of you are in an ambush right now. It feels sudden. It feels Unfair. It feels like you didn't see it coming. You might need to break contact, and that might look like silence instead of confrontation or an argument. Discipline instead of retaliation. Prayer. Prayer. Oh, man. Prayer instead of panic. Strategic patience instead of emotional explosion. Because retreat, breaking contact, it's a deliberate tactic. It's in the handbook. And it's not surrender. Retreat is repositioning so you can get in a position to maneuver and flank the enemy. And when you re engage with wisdom, discipline, and clarity, the ambush and the enemy's tactics have no chance because now you're no longer reacting. You're maneuvering offensively. And that's how you stay in the fight, guys. So the lesson learned. When life ambushes us, we move, we cover, we pray, and we maneuver. And do we quit? Never, never quit. I know some of you want to quit. I feel that. I get chills right now thinking about that, because I feel that every day, multiple times over. But there is no quit. It's not an option for you. You're in the fight for a very specific reason. And you have no choice but to step and move forward to fire and maneuver. Because quitting is never an option for you. And that's resilience. That's discipline, and that's faith under fire. Praying for you all. Praying for those service members that lost their lives and their families. Praying that this country could figure it out. Until next time, peace, guys.