12 Our fight is not against people on earth. We are fighting against the rulers and authorities and the powers of this world’s darkness. We are fighting against the spiritual powers of evil in the heavenly places.
13 That is why you need to get God’s full armor. Then on the day of evil, you will be able to stand strong. And when you have finished the whole fight, you will still be standing.
14 So stand strong with the belt of truth tied around your waist, and on your chest wear the protection of right living
15 On your feet wear the Good News of peace to help you stand strong.
16 And also use the shield of faith with which you can stop all the burning arrows that come from the Evil One.
17 Accept God’s salvation as your helmet. And take the sword of the Spirit—that sword is the teaching of God.
18 Pray in the Spirit at all times. Pray with all kinds of prayers, and ask for everything you need. To do this you must always be ready. Never give up. Always pray for all of God’s people.
I often hear the second part of this verse in sound-byte form. I remember learning the Whole Armor of God song and memorizing the Scripture for Vacation Bible School. We spent more time memorizing the song than engaging the verse itself and putting it into the context of our own young lives. I had my epiphany about this verse several years ago when I was listening to Khujo’s verse in “Reset,” a song on Outkast’s Speakerboxx album. I knew both Scripture verses, as I had heard them over and over as soundbytes, but I visited Ephesians 6:12 and realized that it was the context for putting on the whole armor of God, and my entire perspective opened up. I realized the whole point of suiting up. It may seem obvious now, but I think it proves that God will speak to you through His Word if you just spend some time engaging it, and I also want to admonish all of you who work with or minister to children to be careful about taking things out of context for the sake of simplicity. I believe that children have just as great, if not a greater, natural capacity to hear God’s voice because of their openness and curiosity; furthermore, we should go to great lengths to ensure that children can receive the Word in ways relevant to them. But I don’t want to diverge, so back to suiting up.
It may seem obvious that, okay, put on the whole armor of God so you can stand against the devil. But really, how are we doing that in real life? It sounds good, but who can say that they even know all the armor parts? (I will try to memorize them now, that would be a good first step.) Do we use them, or even know how to use them? And what are we using them for? For myself, I’m still getting the parts fitted. I keep putting it off, but the more I reflect upon verse 12, the more my conscience (the good conscience, aka the angel, aka the Holy Spirit) urges me to get suited up and stay suited up. For those of you who think you can’t really afford the armor, or it’s to restraining, or you don’t deserve to wear it, think again. If you’re having trouble finding the importance in this, let me try to make it more concrete.
I’m an aspiring educator, so many of my examples will come from the education field. When I think about the state of education today, I look at the whole system shake my head in fear for the future, disappointment in our educational/political leadership, and most of all, pity for the children. For any particular situation, I want to blame the teacher, or the parent, or the government, but where does that get me? Nowhere. Those feelings are just intensified and I feel even more helpless as an educator and a citizen. One day, I was just thinking and trying to figure out, if everyone’s trying to fix the problem, and everyone cares, why is it so bad? I understood that individuals were doing their best, and yet the system was so bad. My disdain for the system was taking me to a place of hatred and into a downward spiral of the rejection of all things systematic. It wasn’t wrong, but it was unhealthy and I couldn’t find a way through my hatred of the public school system to a place where I could be more useful because I was too busy trying to figure out who was responsible for this mess that we’re in. And God spoke to me by bringing my thoughts to Ephesians 6:12. My fight isn’t against the individuals, or even the system itself, but the powers of darkness that govern the education system. These dark forces create situations where people do not feel responsible to their children or their nation, they create tension and dissent among people who should be working together to achieve a common goal. These dark forces foster the greed of individuals so that they act selfishly at the expense of many others. Dark forces control the media, which infect the young minds faster than bacteria (in the words of Will.I.Am).
Again, this may seem obvious, as will most things that I plan to write about. The reason they seem so obvious is because we are all spiritual beings and are very sensitive to spiritual forces. Yet, we often shy away from dealing with the spiritual. We more often associate spirituality and forces with the idea of an alternate reality and not this reality. The idea of spirituality within Christianity or Eastern religions is comforting and seems natural. We love to talk about karma and balance, yin and yang, cute little angels and demons on our shoulders to help us make decisions. Yet as a whole (as a nation, as a church, as a group of Christ-followers, as a human race), we do not call out these spiritual forces of darkness for what they are. For example, if I told you that it wasn’t good for your children to watch television because it is a tool of a dark force being used to brainwash and manipulate our children (and the research lines up with this, or you could just take a look around), I would be at the very least ignored by most parents. However, if I created a voodoo doll of a child and threatened to use it, most parents would be calling me crazy and trying to get me locked up. In the former, the idea of powerful spiritual forces is rejected as a serious manner, and in the latter, the fear of the unknown is great enough to provoke a certain feeling or action. Why this dichotomy and what does this mean for us as young people trying to make sense of the world?
I think this inconsistency in the way that we think about spirituality comes from what we are exposed to, how it is presented, in what context, and how often. It is easy for us to see ourselves physical beings with spirits, but really we are spiritual beings with bodies. Again, it is easy to agree with this statement when you think about how attractive the ideas of balance and harmony and karma, and even immortality, are to us as humans. What hinders us, is this physical matrix that we can sense, and we trust and rely on our physical senses more than we do anything else. This can make it tough for us to focus our conscience on the spiritual. While we are exposed to spiritual forces all the time, everything is always presented in a physical context. I’ve been trying to focus more on the spiritual than the physical and it has made me a lot more aware of myself beyond my physical body. I would suggest that you spend the next week trying to transpose as much physical stimuli as you can into a spiritual context. For some, that may be sitting in a park and contemplating the nature of living things. For others that may mean taking a social issue of their concern and trying to deconstruct it as far as possible. Actually, try to deconstruct something. Deconstruct anything as far as you can go, and see if you don’t get to something spiritual (I personally would suggest String Theory for those of you who already feel like you have a strong spiritual sense).
I say all of this because I haven’t really diverged from the original topic, which is about suiting up and putting on the whole armor of God. We have to be aware of the spiritual in order to find purpose in putting on the armor of God. As a matter of fact, we need to be aware of the spiritual in order to do anything of any value in this world. And we need the whole armor of God to do anything of any value in this world.
(If anyone reading this is not Christian, but still considers themselves spiritual, please don’t get caught up on the terminology that I’m using. We’re talking about powers and principalities here, and the tools that are necessary to combat dark forces, or squash bad vibes, etc. Call it what you want because it is what it is.) So it is important to practice finding the spiritual in everything, or more accurately, shedding the physical from everything, so that we know what we’re working with, for starters.
Let me know how it goes.
Love and peace be yours always.
No comments:
Post a Comment