Day Twenty-Five : Push (Shield of Faith)

In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.  (Ephesians 6:16)

I mentioned 300 yesterday.  Have you ever seen it?

It is a pretty bloody movie, but it was quite educational.  How did 300 men hold off millions of trained soldiers?

They positioned themselves well, and they let the enemy exhaust themselves.

In the first major battle scene, the Spartan warriors don’t attack the Persian soldiers.  They crouch down behind their shields and let the Persians wear themselves out attacking them.  Then at a signal, they all push back.  Hard.  The Persians fall over, the Spartans advance, stab the fallen Persians with their swords, and then crouch down again.

And again.

And again.

Until the Persians are all defeated.

 

Sometimes we come under attack, when people throw things at us that we don’t know how to deal with.  We know we should respond with an appropriate scripture or bible verse, but we can’t think of one.  We don’t know how to use our sword at that moment.

So we wait.  We hold onto our shield, and let them batter themselves against our faith with their doubts and questions.  We can’t let them win, just because we don’t know the answer.

Then, we push back with our faith.  We say (to them, or ourselves) “I don't know the answer, but I have faith that there is one.”  Then we “fight back” with a scripture.  It might be about the situation, or it might just be “Trust in the Lord with all your heart.”  or “I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you.”

We use our faith to shield us from attack until we are ready to fight back.  So we don’t lose courage and back off under constant attack.