MSG(R) John “Mike” Fairfax Testimony for 2021 Veterans Day
The Providence of God: How God Shapes Men
There has always been the philosophical debate and question of, “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” The same goes for the question of, “Are leaders born or made?” Being 46 years of age, I have had the luxury of experiencing numerous life altering events, the observation of different cultures, witnessing death and destruction, men and women reborn from the ashes, and the providence of God in action, which has always been in retrospection.
One may wonder why I would even include the subject of the Providence of God in a reflection paper in a leadership class. The Providence of God has everything to do with it! The Puritan John Flavel wrote in his The Mystery of Providence, “For what are the works of Providence but the execution of God’s decree and the fulfilling of His Word?” My father was an active-duty Navy Boatswain Mate during my childhood and did not retire until after I had two years in the military. He was a hard man because of being brought up on a share cropping farm and home, but he cared deeply for my mother, brother and I and instilled in me certain qualities that seem rare these days. He had the work ethic men dreamed of. He was loyal to a fault, honest, a man of his word, and he had integrity. What is remarkable is he somehow taught these to me between Mediterranean Cruises, the Gulf War, and only coming home on every weekend from Little Creek, Virginia and Charleston, South Carolina.
I never understood my father until I had about 10 years in the military and the constant push and pull of serving your country and trying to provide a stable home for my family, but the things he taught me stuck with me and started me off in life on a good footing. Those qualities made me a good Soldier and built a foundation for me to build on. The military is a ‘sink or swim’ organization where it is a baptism of fire in learning basic, everyday leadership. The qualities of work ethic, honesty, integrity, and loyalty my father instilled in me was the basic building block that all I needed in learning how to lead men as a Fire Team Leader in an Infantry Squad. Obviously, a Soldier needs and should be technically and tactically proficient, but with the qualities my father seared into my conscience, it made me a better leader. In my opinion, without those qualities I would have been unsuccessful just starting out.
As time goes on as it does, I became a husband, father, and a leader with more responsibilities that grew with time. In my time as an active-duty Green Beret, the leadership traits required for that organization were all based on the little things my father taught me growing up. In Special Forces though, those traits were and are modeled on a national level at times, but I developed more qualities such as intestinal fortitude, tenacity, drive, strategic thinking, and determination. A house with no foundation is no house at all. A good leader continuously grows with the accumulation of successes and failures, gains and losses, and healthy retrospection.
As a Green Beret I learned the importance and love of mentorship of the younger generation, by teaching them as my dad did and the importance of passing on good leadership qualities. In the Special Operations Community, there is a myriad of egos and personalities and leadership in a sense becomes personality management. You must be able to read a man, and this is only accomplished by getting to know the men that work for you. You should know their wives’ names, their children’s names, things about their childhood, and make that human connection with them between your life and theirs’. Most importantly, no matter who they are, you should show them that you care for them and their families and show genuine concern for them. If you cannot show genuine concern, do not show it all because they will and can tell if you are unconcerned.
Life changing events in a man’s life tend to two things: make them bitter and mad at the world or more determined to conquer life and let nothing stop them. I have seen both and the former is ugly and destructive. Life changing events can make a man better and increase his resolve and battle harden his look on life. On July 31, 2005, my life changing event could of went two ways and at the beginning it was hard to tell which one would win out. God saved me somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean two days after being awakened from a three-day drug induced coma with my wife lying beside me on a stretcher, inside of a C-141 medical transport. Even though Christ Jesus was my Lord and Savior now, I was a very long way off from where God wanted me to be. I would come to find out that the place He wanted me to be and where I wanted to go was different.
After recovery, I fell deep into depression because of losing my identity as a man and all I knew was being a Green Beret. After cutting my leg off, I became the first amputee in the US Army to complete Jumpmaster School, deployed three more times to Afghanistan, promoted to Master Sergeant, and then became a First Sergeant. On the outside I looked fine, but on the inside I was a ticking time bomb. It started to surface as panic attacks and not even knowing what they were at first. After my amputation so I could rejoin the “War is a Drug” deployments, I took my eyes off my Lord and Savior to pursue what I thought was my identity.
Eventually my life came to a crashing halt in October of 2014 and then I started to get a glimpse of the Providence of God. God, in His Sovereignty and Providence, blew me up on July 31, 2005 to save me. God knew afterwards I had to destroy myself and let me see what happens to me when I try to take command. God had to show me how inept and futile my thinking and way of life was. Through the crucible of post-traumatic stress disorder, God used it to destroy who I thought I was and who I thought my identity was, and it was not found in being a Green Beret any longer. During the time of my backslidings, God was breaking me and molding me, breaking me and molding me, over and over and over till there was nothing left of me. I was at this point a fully broken man and a heap of ashes. This is when He said, “Now you are ready.”
By His providential hand, He now led me to a church and a Sunday School class. In that Sunday School class, He put within me the desire to teach Sunday School and it began a journey of devouring books on theology, doctrine, and scripture. He put within me a deep zeal, passion, and craving for His word and to become a pastor. Looking back, God has been preparing me my whole life for right now and for the future to come. He has given me a small flock to shepherd because they had no Shepherd for almost a year and the doors were about to close. The things my father instilled in me was the beginning, which carried into my years as a Green Beret. In my father is where I saw first the transforming power of the Word of God. He went from a hard man to a man that was able to say, “I love you” and being affectionate without feeling any less of being a man. He was still a hard man because he was a masculine man, but the change in him was evident and that God had come into his heart. As a Green Beret I developed the ability to plan operations, teach and mentor, to take responsibility when no one will, to protect the defenseless and those in need, and lead from the front and by example. God is now using all these traits He developed in me for His purposes.
God has been building me, breaking me, and molding me over and over my entire life so that He could use me for His eternal purposes. Leaders are born, but then they are developed through the hands of the Almighty. Everything I have learned was taught by different people in my life at different times in my life, but in the great scheme and maneuver, it was God who was instructing me through His providence. It has always been Him and that is why His providence is truly a mystery. “There is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones……