In Ephesians 6:11-17,
“Put on the whole armor of God that ye may be
able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh
and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of
darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore
take unto you the whole armor of God that ye may be able to withstand in the
evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins
girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; and your
feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the
shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of
the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit,
which is the word of God: Praying always with all prayer and supplication in
the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for
all saints.”
So,
weeks ago we were discussing this scripture in a Sunday School for women in my
church. We talked about this scripture, to use it as a tool to stand in holy
places. We aren’t to just to idly stand by to let the hard world beat down on
our different morals, but we are to find strength in the symbolic armor of God
and stand in safe places.
Well, in this Sunday School class I
made a comment about how, my husband and I like to keep our home safe, so when
we come home we can take off our armor and rest. After I made this comment the
teacher declared, “No! Never take of the armor!”
I tried to explain my thoughts by
saying something along the lines of, “…of getting away to a place where we
don’t have to fight all the time.”
Now,
like many times before, the right words have come to me.
Like in any war there is armor, we
where something to protect our body. But like any armor it won’t hold up forever,
it won’t protect us from hits always. Like in any war there are safety points,
home bases where the soldiers can rest, heal from their wounds and repair their
armor. Even in a child’s game of tag we create a “home base” to catch our
breath.
Now to recap about the symbolic
armor of God there is…
-
Girt
our loins with truth
-
Breastplate
of righteousness
-
Shod
our feet with preparation of the gospel of peace
-
Shield
of faith
-
Helmet
of salvation
-
Sword
of the Spirit
Each
piece of this armor and with its weapons is needed to protect us and fight off
the attacks of the Adversary and those who fight for him. But in any battle
with any soldier repairs are needed to protect our heart and stay standing
strong. Even a sword needs sharpening.
Yet,
fighting again and again gets tiring and our sword can get dull. So what can a
person do to regain strength? Go to a safe place.
“In
the fear of the Lord is strong confidence: and his children shall have a place
of Refuge,” Proverbs 14:26
In any war of any kind a safe place
is needed, as I have said before. For me in this war against THE Enemy my safe
place, my refuge, isn’t just church, but my home. My husband and I want to come
home and take off our defenses, take time to repair our armor.
How do we repair our armor? Well,
for us personally there are a few things we do.
·
We
spend time together, just us. We talk about our day, the good and even the bad
stuff. We swap stories and even jokes. We’ve been known to exchange some of the
corniest jokes (I will spare you on telling them to you).
·
We
have our time that we call alone, but together time. We may be in the same room
but we are doing different things. For an example as I am typing this my
husband is studying the scriptures.
·
Studying
the scriptures (both alone and together). This is to better understand what God
wants to do and achieve. This strengthens our faith as well.
·
We
love a clean home. Yes, it gets messy at times and we aren’t neat freaks
either; but we feel a strong sense of peace when things are in order.
·
We
serve each other. Strangely enough we’ve even fought over who gets to do the
dishes. We both don’t like it and we know if we take the other person’s day of
doing dishes we are serving that person.
·
One
of the biggest things that keep our home a safe place is we limit how the world
gets into our home. For us and our home, we choose not to have cable and
internet. We are even rather particular with what kind of movies we let into
our home. (We’ve both thrown out a few movies from our collection- and we are
BIG movie fans).
“But how do you live like that? So cut off
from the world?” some of you may ask. It was hard at first, at least for me, I
can’t speak for my husband. But I’ve gotten use to it. It’s better for me to
keep the world away like that for I am rather addicted to television and
surfing the internet.
To close this out I want to end with
story from my past. I was born into a good Christian home, but I didn’t have my
own zeal to go until I was about 13 or 14. Since then I would get spiritually
filled every Sunday at church, but by the time the next Sunday would come
around I would be empty, I would be filling low. I often called myself, a cup
with holes. It wasn’t until I was 21 that I realized what was missing. I would
combat the world for six days without rest, combating it even in my home and
then by Sunday my armor would be weaken and I would be exhausted. I wasn’t
stepping back from the fight to my safe place, because I didn’t build one up
outside of church.
Even now I am stilling learning
about building a safe place for me, my husband and always have for visitors and
for our children in the future.
I doubt anyone who isn’t religious
will be reading this, but I could be wrong, I don’t mind being wrong. But those
who don’t seek the same beliefs I do I am sure you too need a safe place to
recover from the fight. The world is a hard place to live in and we can’t do it
alone and we definitely can’t do it ALL the time.
