It was some years ago now, “never mind how long precisely”, that I had the lesson of trying to defend myself taught to me.
The lessons always start when the sentences start with I.
I had been in the bible studying Ephesians 6 and the armor of God.
Most christian men wind up there sooner or later.
I was no different. A soldier of Christ, with my own armor, helmet, shield and sword.
Cool.
So you go into battle. Or what we consider a battle. As time wears on and we gird our loins everyday we put on the armor and sally forth.
Then eventually and quite inevitably we get tired.
I couldn’t carry my shield of faith.
Oh, I could hold on to it and let it rest on the ground, remember these are big Roman Legion shields four feet tall, but I could not carry it very far and I surely wasn’t using it to move forward and claim any ground.
Being true to His word my shield of faith did extinguish all of the fiery darts flying my way but I was only hiding behind it.
I wasn’t actively engaged in the fight.
Something wasn’t right on the inside of me.
And like he always does the Lord sat me down, did not say anything and he let me talk my way through what I was going through.
Sometimes spiritual people poo poo the idea of using simple logic but I now know God uses that all the time. We just refuse to accept the simplicity of Jesus Christ.
There I was studying his word about the armor.
The story of King David and Saul came to mind of when David was a boy and defeated Goliath.
King Saul gives David his armor. It did not fit well. David indicated he could not fight in the kings armor, he could not move around well at all.
David proceeds to tell King Saul he will go against the Philistine with the weapons God has given him and in the name of the living God of Israel.Â
David did not have any type of physical shield.
Then I was led into the Psalms. Kinda been there ever since.
Psalm 3:2-4
“…2 Many are saying of my soul,
“There is no deliverance for him in God.” Selah.
3Â But You, O LORD, are a shield about me, My glory, and the One who lifts my head.
4Â I was crying to the LORD with my voice, And He answered me from His holy mountain.”
The Lord is my shield around me. The God Son. What can get through that?
Here is the logic portion… nothing, think about it. Nothing can get through God himself if we are his child and are drawn near to him.
So I leaned on that scripture.
The thing about spiritual warfare once you are aware of it, the evil backs off and awaits an opportune time to catch you off guard.
I have dream/visions and have had demons attack me when I was about to speak the word of God in public.
In my own power of putting on Gods armor I became tired.
When I was shown what I was doing I repented and asked (prayed) for God to show me the lesson. He did. His armor does not exactly fit me.
But his son has covered me in His blood and claimed me for the kingdom.
I am on the inside of that now. It’s wonderful. It’s confidence in Him.
The next time I had a vision of a dark demon flying at me out the corner of my eye I only caught a quick glimpse.
It bounced off of my Lord as the shield around me like a sparrow off the windshield of a Mac truck doing 80.
It never touched me.
And it can never touch me again.Â
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