Pick Up Your Shield!

 It protects. It covers. It defends. It needs to be held close. It needs to be carried at all times to all places. It needs to be used every day. I'm talking about none other than the shield of faith described in Ephesians 6. In verses 11-17 of Ephesians 6, Paul talks about the spiritual armor we should be wearing daily. Now we should wear all of these, but today I want to focus in particular on Ephesians 6:16. It says, "In every situation, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one." I love how the verse begins with in every situation. That means whether the situation is good or bad, we need our shield. In moments of heartache and joy, we need our shield. In moments of breakdown and breakthrough, we need our shield. In moments of frustration and favor, we need our shield. And not just any shield....we need our shield of faith! Faith is believing in God. It's believing who He is and what He can do. It's believing everything will be alright when it doesn't look alright. It's believing you will be okay when you don't feel okay. It's taking those steps forward when we don't know what the next step will bring. That's faith. That's what we need to carry every day. II Corinthians 5:7 reminds us, "For we walk by faith, not by sight." I mentioned this verse in a blog post not long ago, but God won't let this reminder go! It's our faith that we have to hold on to. Things look bad in our world, but we have to keep picking up our shield of faith. Our life's circumstances aren't perfect, but we have to keep picking up our shield of faith. When we carry our shield. it can defend us from the arrows that come our way. Those arrows of self-doubt, low self-esteem, discouragement, negativity and unforgiveness can be knocked down with our shield. When our shield is in place and we use it, we can be protected from the lies of the enemy. We can be protected from wrong motives, attitudes, mindsets, thoughts, song lyrics, and insults. If they don't line up with what God says, knock it down. Like verse 16 says, extinguish it! Extinguish means put an end to. We can't change every circumstance around us, but we sure can extinguish those wrong arrows quickly. We don't have to accept the wrong labels others try to put on us. We don't have to accept mediocre and settle for less than what God promised us. We have to only accept what God says. That's why we defend and cover ourselves with prayer, Bible reading, a loving support system and the Word of God daily. We're tested in some way every day, but the key is how we respond. Let's choose to respond in faith. Let's choose to believe what God says and extinguish everything not of God that comes our way. Just like you choose to pick up your phone to take with you every day, choose to pick up your shield every day. Choose to use it every day. After all, it is the best covering you could have!