Pillow or Shield

The alarm went off at 5:15 AM. I was packed and ready to go, so all it would take to get me to the airport was a quick shower, get dressed and a five minute drive to Eugene Municipal. I thought as I woke this morning that I would so much rather for the Lord to have given me (at least for this day) the "pillow of faith" rather than the shield of faith. Whereupon I could "rest on his unchanging love". But, it is in fact the shield of faith.

It was a rather large shield that Paul would have referenced in his picture of the soldier. Not only big enough for one soldier to be protected by but if coupled with another shield could provide a rather trusty wall of protection.

This protection is so necessary. The scripture says "take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one." Those attacks that pierce and burn are things like hopelessness, fear, lies, and accusations. All things that the enemy of our soul would want us to feel the pain of. Hopelessness feels real bad. Fear can be immobilizing. Lies are can be so believable and accusations can seem so founded. YET, because of Jesus we can see with eyes of faith. Hebrews 12 says "fix your eyes on Jesus the AUTHOR and PERFECTOR of your FAITH." He is the source of your faith and will remain the source forever.

So when you want to retreat to the "pillow of faith" and not face the day, instead take up the shield of faith, and stand firm. God is for you today.

AND one more cool thing. When you stand in faith where you are and I stand in faith where I am, we are actually standing together. Even though I'm on my way to Romania and my church family is home in Eugene, when we each take up the shield of faith it matters to all of us.
Taking up my shield,
VAN