Flaming Arrows Caught and Extinguished

Lately, I have heard a lot of spiritual warfare. I have come to the conclusion that all churches and ministries and everything, all secretly collaborate to come up with a topic. Spring 2012 it was relationships and dating and marriage, now Fall 2013 is Spiritual Warfare. I’ve heard it at SWAT, I’ve heard it at church, I’ve heard it on the C.S. Lewis Institute of Atlanta website- this month is focused on Spiritual Warfare, we’ve talked about it in Bible Study, and it seems like the list goes on and on.

I love though how it relates so well to where I am in life, something that I need to hear. It’s a weird feeling though- part of me wants to take it, dive in, and cling tight and grasp all the knowledge and wisdom I can get, and the other part wants to say, NOOOOO and buck the system. The same thing happened in Spring 2012, I was in this weird relationship if you want to call it that, and part of me wanted to hear everything I could about relationships and the other part wanted to plug my ears and say, “You just don’t understand.”

Everything that is always preached on Spiritual Warfare always centers on Ephesians 6. I mean it’s the Christian battle armor passage, so why wouldn’t it?! But I heard a pastor say recently that we have to be careful with it. So often, we read that passage, dive in, and we go at the enemy with guns ablazin’ ready to take him on. COME AT ME, DEVIL! And when he shows up, he doesn’t come as we expect, and we start to wobble a little bit as we take some fire.

Last night, I was listening to one of the C.S. Lewis Institute messages on the subject that was talking about Screwtape (Screwtape Letters by Lewis) and how we really battle him. Are there important key things to gain from the Spiritual Armor of God? Yes, it is something that we need to incorporate into our daily lives; it shouldn’t be something we just run to when times get tough. It should be something that is lived out daily. A Christian cliché, I know. But the pastor last night illustrated that the time when God can do the most work in us is when we are least like God. It’s when we are being impatient that we recognize that, and we pray, “God, please come help me with this impatience.” It’s when we’re angry, and we pray “God, please come help me with this anger.” He went on later to say, that in order to truly escape the wiles of the evil one, you have to secure yourself in the love of Christ. If you see yourself the way Christ sees you, then think about how much less the enemy can attack! If I see myself as valued, then when the enemy comes to attack that, the flaming arrow will be extinguished as a grab the arrow out of the air like a super hero. When he comes to attack through fear, I can remember that perfect love casts out fear and that fear is due to insecurity. If I’m secure in the love of Christ, I have no reason to be insecure.

Now, trust me, I realize that this is so much easier to say that put into practice. I fail at this on a daily, regular basis. We are human; we have changing emotions; people hurt us; we hurt other people. The goal is for us to grow though, to be made more readily in the image of the Living God, for the light of the Savior of the World to shine through us even brighter.

I’ve learned recently too that every struggle I encounter is not necessarily from the enemy. I would actually argue that right now, of the situations I’m handling, very few are caused by the enemy. God played a role in some, not as a way to hurt me, but as a way to grow me in some circumstances and discipline me in others. Others are completely human error. There is nothing like when God combines human error and discipline together to tell you that you’ve gotten prideful and that you forgot that all success comes from Him. Yeah, that lesson hurt and bruised some toes.

I have growing to do. I have ways that I need God to strengthen me and stretch me and show me new ways of love. As I stay in His love and secure myself more and more in that, I will continue to extinguish the flaming arrows that are trying to silence my faith.