An article in The Wall Street Journal notes that “Some American soldiers returned from Afghanistan bearing scars or missing limbs. Others have wounds invisible to those around them, or even to themselves.”

The article highlights the story of Tyler Koller. Raised in a conservative Christian home, Koller joined the Army at the age of 18, and his first deployment was with Bravo Company. In his Army days, the fire in Koller’s belly was stoked by belief in his mission and faith in a just and loving God. He’d gather his squad to say a prayer before they stepped out of the wire to go on patrol, and he wouldn’t ever say a cuss word, even though his fellow troops used to offer him money to say the F-word out loud. “No way,” he’d say. It would be an affront to the Lord and to his mother, who raised him in the Pentecostal church.

Koller wasn’t physically broken in Afghanistan, but something did happen to him. Like many men and women who went to Iraq and Afghanistan in over 20 years of war, he suffered a moral injury. A soldier heads to a war zone with a carefully tuned moral compass that parents and preachers and teachers and friends have helped to calibrate.

But in a combat zone, soldiers see, hear, and do things that aren’t aligned with the true north of that moral compass. Koller saw horrible things in Afghanistan: the killing of American and Taliban soldiers but also the inadvertent maiming of children. He learned of bacha bazi, a slang term for the sexual abuse of young boys by corrupt Afghan policemen.

“The faith that I had went away,” Koller said, though “I have hope in my heart that there’s a higher being out there.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

This is a negative illustration, but it can raise questions around suffering or the problem of evil. What does your sermon text or biblical theme say about how to maintain your faith in the midst of suffering and evil?