The Armor of God: Forward Facing

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.  Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.  For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, and against the world forces of the darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.  Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.

Ephesians 6: 10-13

     We, my family, are on the verge of our second international adoption. By my calculations, we are down to months---six or less.  I know the realities of what we will face. I've walked this road, before. I know the realities that this nearly six year old boy, my son, will face. I've witnessed them with my Jack. We're heading into battle, a battle for the unseen--hope, joy, peace, love, faith, all the fragile, intricate pieces that make up the inward parts of a little person we will call our own.  There will not always be Hallmark endings that fit tidily into our self-made, dreamed up boxes. There WILL be hard days, maybe, many hard days--possibly, years of hard days. That's how putting broken pieces back together looks. It's messy business.

     How do we face the battle? How do I, the one who goes by the simple title Mommy, look into the eyes of my child, see overwhelming hurt, grief, abandonment, confusion, anger, fear, insecurity, and not crumble--completely crumble into the farthest corner imaginable and never get up? He is how. My father says,   "Put on my armor, face forward, and move into the battle." 

1.  The armor is His.  We do not manufacture, hope for, or earn His armor.  That would mean that it somehow belonged to us.  The very nature of the armor is derived from God.  It has been since the beginning.  It was  made available to us through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  If we are a believer, it's lying at our feet.  Because we are His, it is ours. We need only to put it on!

2.  We choose to wear the armor.  Twice in the above scripture, Paul admonishes the church of Ephesus to put on God's armor.  Choosing God's strength over our own strength is a matter of the will.  Do we choose the tools He has made available to us by crucifying self, or do we choose to move in our own strength?

 Notice Paul tells us to put on the whole armor of God. We can also opt to wear only the pieces of armor that we deem necessary, but scripture is clear. This will leave us susceptible to failure.

3.  The armor is meant to be permanent.  "Put on" means put it on, and leave it on.  We can conclude with certainty from this statement that trials, heartbreak, temptations, devastations...and the list could go on.. will come into our life.  If for no other reason, there is a spiritual battle that is going on around us, and whether we realize it or not, when we chose Christ, we chose the battle. Secondly, trials and temptations are not isolated events.  They will come and go as long as we are passing through this foreign land we call life. Our armor must be a constant source of protection.

4.  The struggles are difficult and exhausting.  The word used for "struggle" in this passage refers to hand-to-hand combat. In other words, satan can become up close and personal with us.  Although we all face common struggles, sometimes, the evil one will be allowed to hit us where it hurts the most. The demons knew the names of the apostles, and satan wanted to destroy Job. He is not oblivious to us. Lest we fear, the war was won at Calvary, however;  to have an effective walk, we should expect and be prepared for exhausting warfare that can only be won through the power of Jesus Christ.

5.  There is no armor for the back.  Of all the armor that is given to us by the Father, there is no protection for the back.  We are called to be forward facing, continuously moving ahead in battle--spreading the gospel, loving the unlovable, reflecting His glory--simply put, being aware and submissive to the prompting of the Holy Spirit.

We will be forward facing because there is never a need for retreat.  Our God, the Loin of Judah, lives within us.  It is impossible, through His strength, to fail in such a way that we could never get back up.  He created the Universe.  Surely, He has conquered every trial and temptation that could ever cause us to stumble.

Lastly, my friend, we are forward facing because we are continuously moving toward a glorious ending.  Trials here lose their grip when we set our sights on Eternity. No matter how battle weary we may be, there is coming a moment when we will march in from battle, many with wounds to show, and we will slip off that dented up, beat up armor and lay it at the feet of the very One who made the armor possible---forward facing, all the way to our Savior.

     

Casting Our Nets

And it came to pass, that as the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he stood by the lake of  Gennesaret,

And saw two ships standing by the lake: but the fisherman were gone out of them, and were washing their nets.

And he entered into one of the ships, which was Simon's, and prayed him that he would thrust out a little from the land.  And he sat down, and taught the people out of the ship.

Now when he had left speaking, he said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.

And Simon answering said unto him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net.

And when they had this done, they enclosed a great multitude of fishes: and their net brake.

And they beckoned unto their partners, which were in the other ship, that they should come and help them.  And they came, and filled both the ships, so that they began to sink.

When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.

For he was astonished, and all that were with him, at the draught of the fishes which they had taken:

And so was also James, and John, the sons of Zebedee, which were partners with Simon, Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men.

And when they had brought their ships to land, they forsook all, and followed him.

Luke 5 1-11

     As much as I like science, it's the statistics behind the science that really call to me.  The realist in me wants to know her odds, and the faith in me wants to know the odds that her God is going to overcome.  I wrestle between the two---my odds and my faith.  We all do.  Needless to say, when I heard these verses of scripture, I sat up and took notice.  Actually, my eyes took notice. They filled with tears. The odds said there would be no fish in that net. Faith said listen to the Rabbi.  Everyday, just as Simon Peter did, we choose between our odds and our faith--the concrete, what we can see and touch, and the unseen, the Father's promises and precepts. 

        What happens when we choose to let down our nets, even in the face of disappointment? The disciples had clearly been disappointed. What happens when we resolve, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to follow Him when it doesn't make sense, when it hurts, when the most we can muster is a "Help me, Father", when we can't see through our anger or our tears, when our home is silent, when our future is shattered, when there are no pieces to pick up because the pieces are simply gone.  So... what happens?

     Casting our nets after disappointment means we do what is counter-intuitive to our logic.  Simon made this point to Christ. "We've worked all night and caught nothing."  Peter had the feeling he was wasting his time, but he had enough faith to obey--despite his doubts.  Notice there is no sentence of rebuke from Christ written between Simon Peter's statement of the obvious and his obedience to Christ. Faith, which translates into obedience, doesn't have to come without fear or hurt or questions. It means faith should follow even in the presence of all these emotions. Through tears, confusion, and disappointment, we cast our nets.

We Get a Glimpse of the Savior
     We would be remise if we mistook the fish as the blessing.  Read the last line of the passage. They left the fish! They forsook everything. The fish were nothing to Peter, James, and John. This scripture is not about Jesus giving a group of fisherman a bunch of fish. It's about the Giver of the fish. The miracle caused these boys to get a glimpse of the Savior.  They recognized His sovereignty over all of creation. They knew they had come in contact with the real deal, the Messiah.

     This recognition started to change the fishermen from the inside out.  Peter fell at Jesus' feet and confessed his tenacity for being a sinner.  He realized who he was in relationship to the Messiah.  Jesus was God and worthy of Simon's everything.  It was the day Simon Peter surrendered his life to Christ.  He would never be the same.

   Obedience in the face of disappointment--complete disaster, even the kind that seems unfixable--changes who we are because it changes how we see the Father. Our minds can not get an understanding of our Father if we sit with clinched fists and fear in our hearts, refusing to listen to His call. It is impossible for the Savior to transform our hearts when we choose self-preservation over the One who wants to transform our inward parts.  

   
     When we answer, "Yes." and walk in the paths He has called us to, He starts the renovation. Everyone's call is different, but there's always a call. The answer is our choice. To say yes means, we begin to see the sovereignty of Jesus.  There is nothing that is beyond His sphere of control. It changes our hearts. It makes us more like Him. Our lives are never the same.

We Get a Glimpse of Our Future
     The fish represented a much larger idea. Jesus was in essence saying, "You ain't seen nothin', yet!"  The fish were a picture of the men's lives that would be impacted by Peter, James, and John's obedience. They were going to turn the world upside down for Christ.  They got a glimpse of their futures, and the futures were way cooler than being fishermen.  Christ allowed them this insight.  They clearly could have had no idea of the scope of their influence, but it was enough of a glimpse for them to be all in.

    Refusing to allow disappointment to hinder our full-on surrender to Christ can do the same for us. Christ gives us a glimpse of our future. Sticking with Him means we are allowed to experience the weaving back together of our broken dreams. We start to recognize that with Christ our futures are unbreakable.We, like the Disciples, will never know nor understand the full impact we will have on future generations, but  what casting our nets teaches us is that we are unstoppable, invincible. We are more that conquerors with Christ.  This, my friends,  is our future.

He is our future.

The Closet

      The Closet was written somewhere between the passing of my oldest son and the adoption of my youngest son. It was in that space of time that God revealed Himself to me, holy, powerful, all consuming, able to rescue us from the darkest places, hope giving, Father.  We are never left alone if we dare to trust His presence and providence.
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     There's a closet in my home where the Shekinah glory of God resides.  It's down a narrow hall, last door to the left. That's my son's room.  Within the room, the closet rests.  Shekinah---His presence. It bears repeating--- The presence of the Glory of God.  His presence does not go unnoticed. It does not go unmarked. It is the place where miracles happy---where the impossible transpires. We have seen the hand of a mighty God within the confines of a hollow space.  God filling a hollow space, He's good at that.
     Shekinah presence led the children of Israel to the Promised land, destroying armies, giving provision, parting the sea, leading day and night. His glory is not found in boot strap moments. It's found in the deserts of life, the moments only He can  heal, the moments that are empty of self, the hollow moments. He fills the hollow spaces.
      The closet knew Shekinah glory in the mere seconds that pass while passing between life and death--our boy, received into the presence of the Father. He slipped from death into life. God did not miss the moment. He was present. He was in the hollow space. He filled the space.
      Shekinah glory thrusts itself into the horrific places, the places we are too weak and too human to claim.  It thrusts itself into a closet that was meant for destruction. It thrusts, saturates, permeates itself into a broken home, into broken hearts of flesh,  those that could only bring themselves to sleep in the farthest reaches of  a home, far away from the closet, piled all in one space. It was a hollow space. He filled the space. He's good at that.
      Shekinah glory, the presence of the Glory of God, surrounded a mother, dragging herself to claim the closet, holding the hand of Glory. Her Father met her in the floor of the closet.  Some days were numb, others weeping. Some days were anger and rebellion. God did not miss the moment.  He was present. He filled the hollow spaces.
       It is He who began to change the hollow space of the closet.  Shekinah glory calls us into obedience.  His kind of obedience demands love.  It is how we know He has been in a space. He propels us to lands far away, across ocean and continent. He calls us to fill the hollow spaces.  The empty, long neglected places of an orphan. Of course, He's really filling the spaces. He's good at that.
      There's a closet in my home where the Shekinah glory of God resides. It's down a narrow hall, last door to the left.  That's my sons' room. Within the room, the closet rests. It overflows with toys, baskets of shoes, half hung clothes, and a pile of hand-me-downs---awaiting another trip across ocean  and continent, another orphan-- and life, yes, life.  It comes from a little boy. He has my heart, but not my DNA.  It's the kind of life that comes from empty spaces being filled. That's how we know He's been there.  He fills the hollow spaces.  He's good at that.
   
     

Freedom

     Freedom from my sin did not begin with my love for Him, but it is, without argument, the opposite that calls me into liberty.  It is Christ who proved His love for me on a cross two thousand years ago.  Despite all power and authority, He submitted Himself to death and carried the sin of all generations--past, present, and future--to Golgotha.  He epitomized the servant-leader, displaying His tenacity to demand the best for my existence.  Christ elected to demonstrate that He is worthy to be entrusted with my well-being.

     The freedom from sin comes in my decision to trust.  It does not take root within my desire to please Him, my love for Him, or white-knuckled self-control.  These attributes are secondary, arising from the trust I place in Christ. If I rely on these motives, I have moved from Christ being the centrality of my freedom.  I have made myself into a god, becoming my own object of trust.

     The upside-down paradigm that Christ has created in our path to freedom has been twisted by the evil one.  Self-control equates to failure, toil, anxiety, and guilt.  The weight of our reflection of holiness falls upon our own shoulders.  The yoke of our pursuit of Christ becomes heavy. It was never meant to be heavy.

     The well-spring of liberty flows from trust.  Trust allows me to slip gently into a welcome submission to the One who loves me.  Trust empowers me to release from my grasp the temporary pleasures of sin because it cannot compare to the riches of a life within the safety of Christ.  Trust embraces the already demonstrated truth that the best for me flows from a sovereign Father.  I need only to choose to believe this truth.
   
     Trust is quiet, gentle to the spirit, restful,... without burden.  Trust carries a light yoke, allowing me to work and play within the watchful eye of my Father.

     This Father calls out for us to trust.  He pursues our trust. It is the power behind broken chains. Trust is the ticket to our freedom.

An Orphan's Gratitude

     I've never known a good parent whose motivation for loving and serving their children came from the expectation that their child/children would appreciate all of the hard work, passion, and commitment that it takes to raise a happy, healthy family.  We parents know that children are greedy by nature, especially in the early years. They don't care that you've worked for eight hours, cooked dinner, cleaned up their mess, and now need a good night's sleep. They will keep us awake all night...well, just because. After only a few brief hours of parenthood, most are smart enough to have figured out that " thank you" will be a long time coming.
     Adoptees have the same experience. No child ever appreciates being taken from all they've ever known, flown to a far away land, and then, spending the next six months not understanding a word of anything that anyone says. A family is the best thing, but the disturbances at hand take precedence over the long term goals of giving a child security and a future with choices. Whatever grandiose ideas adoptive parents hold of their children having a heart of gratitude ends on a plane ride somewhere between throw up in their laps over the northern polar cap and a nearly, screaming fit-induced, flight delay in Atlanta. This is just speaking from personal experience, of course.
    But then, one day it happens-- the gratitude. This year was Jack's third time celebrating Halloween and the first year that he didn't become so overwhelmed that the whole thing ended in tears. He loves the orange Halloween lights that are hung on porches for the night's festivities. As we were approaching the first trick-or-treating house of the night (with the orange lights), he yells out, "Wow! Look at that!" He puts his little arms around my waist, squeezes, and says, "I love you, Mom." He was thankful! He got that it was a big deal that he was there, in that moment, with us. As his parents, we've always understood the importance of the idea that he was chosen to be ours, that we chose him out of all the children in the world. Now, he is starting to comprehend the very same thing. It reveals a maturity and an understanding that is growing within our boy.
     It made me wonder. Do we have a heart of gratitude toward our Heavenly Father? Just like Jack, we all have a past. As life often goes, that past can be filled with tremendous heartache, sin, abandonment, and all out pain. Life can hurt! Do we continue to hold on to the pain, with closed fists, because holding on means we reduce the risk of more disappointment? Because holding on means we are in control of something even if that something is destructive? Do we become so consumed with our heartache that we forget that we were ransomed with the price of The Lamb's blood?
     Or, do we recognize that we were orphans? We were rescued never to be abandoned, again. By growing in the knowledge of the gospel, our hearts can overflow with a song of gratitude. Jack's past has left his body broken, but even within the fatigue and overwhelming emotions, he could enjoy the moment. He could enjoy the lights because he knows what it is to be without the lights. We, too, have known the darkness. Now, bought with a price and adopted into His family, we know The Light! Let go, and with great thanksgiving, rejoice!

Sadness---The Other Emotion

     Tonight, I did what mothers do. I rocked my sick boy, Jack, to sleep.  As I always do in these times, I wondered how many times in the four years of institutional living he was sick, and no one was there to comfort him? No one was there to make the calming shhhh-ing noise that all mothers instinctively make when their babies are in need of consoling.  No one was there to pat his back, to soothe him with the rhythmic back and force rocking of the innate motion given to mothers, to sit with him, cheek to cheek, or to whisper a prayer over him for peace, healing, and a God-filled future.  The thoughts made me sad, but I'm learning to be okay with that.
      When we reach into the unknown, we can never return to ignorance. Abstract ideas are no longer just that---ideas.  Our presupposed thoughts and emotions on a subject disappear under the concrete realness of an experience. I'm learning that it is the experience that grows the God character within me. I can't ignore the plight of the orphan or the pain of a parent's grief. These are my experiences. There's no guess work involved in the reality of these experiences. There's no room for a buffer or chosen indifference. It's an impossibility for me to close my eyes to these overwhelmingly difficult circumstances.  The sadness comes---along with compassion, love, empathy, and the desire to avoid idleness in the Kingdom.  The experience becomes fuel for a purposeful life driven by the power of Christ within me.
     Why, then, has it been decided that pain should be avoided--that we somehow have the right to a perfectly blissful existence? Whether chosen sadness or God-ordained unexpected sadness, why do we do all that is within us to squash it down inside of ourselves, numb it, run from it?  Children are ripped from their mother's womb all for the sake of self-preservation--we've avoided the pain. We vilify  the one who did the ripping--His people have avoided the pain. We turn a blind eye to the sick, the mentally-ill, the orphan, the widow, the poor, the spiritually impoverished---we've avoided the pain. In avoiding the pain, we've avoided the blessing. We have destroyed our ability to grow in knowledge---to turn the abstract into the concrete. Thus, we have destroyed our ability to become as our Father. With that, we have destroyed ourselves.
      May we learn to embrace pain just as we embrace joy.  God help us that we are ungrateful for the darkness that shadows our lives! May we be content in the knowledge that we are no longer ignorant to the suffering of others, and that just as our Father controls the intricate details of the universe, every emotion was created by Him and is under His foot. Just as every piece of His handy work calls out His name, so the pain that weaves itself into the masterpiece of our lives will point back to the Master Designer.
   

Finding the Son

It was a few months ago that I realized my son, Jack, had never seen the sun rise. I suspect he didn't even know that's how it works, the sun rising and falling. 

He's six now, adopted two years ago from an orphanage in Thailand. The moon and stars were his first heavenly discovery. Only a few months after coming home, he pointed into the night sky. It was then that I understood that he had never been outside during the time when the sun disappears and the moon makes its appearance. Jack was given the gift of the moon and stars when he was four years old. 

The sun rise was his second discovery. In mid June, we had a trip to make to a city a few hours away. It was the early hours of the morning as we loaded up into the car. The sun was still down. As we drove, the sun began to rise up over the trees.

"Mommy! It the day time?" Jack was starting to realize that sometime between leaving our home and arriving at our destination, this wonderful transition was taking place. "LOOK, MOMMY! It the sun!" 

"Do you see it, Jack? The sun's coming up over the trees. That's what the sun does every morning. It gets higher and higher in the sky."

The only problem was, as we would travel and our car would change directions, the sun would disappear behind the trees. Frustrated Jack growled from the back seat, "The sun hiding!"

"No, Jack. The sun doesn't hide. Our car is changing directions. Changing directions makes it look like the sun is hiding, but the sun never moves."

Need I say more? 

The Son never moves. He is unchanging and constant, just as the sunrise. He is fixated within the Universe, and yet, His presence moves beyond eternity and spreads out into our lives. There is no where, nor no one, that is beyond His reach.

We do not have to see Him to feel His light or to experience His warmth. As we travel, there are tragic storms, blindness by sin, clouds of depression, tunnels of anxiety--the kind of tunnels that are so long that we can't see the light until we have stepped into the darkness to begin our journey--, and unforeseen obstacles. All can cause the unfortunate dilemma of losing sight of the Son. But still, His effects do not waiver.

Jesus spoke these words to John the Revelator, I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever!  And I hold the keys of death and Hell.

He is our forever and ever! The Son never moves. 

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