How can surrounding myself with truth protect me and help me to stand?

September 20, 2013: How can surrounding myself with truth protect me and help me to stand? Please “Share” This New Blog Post for Precious Prodigal: http://wp.me/p1D8dQ-cN

Ephesians 6:14 “Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth”

So we’ve established that we want to survive this journey that is more like a war, and at the end we want to still be standing. That’s going to require that we put on the whole armor of God. Where do we start? I talked first about the helmet of salvation because we can’t very well put on the armor of God if we have never received Christ as our personal savior. Once we have done that, we’re ready to put on that armor.

The first thing on the list is the belt that holds the other defensive pieces. That belt or “girdle” is truth, and it’s going to be the foundation for all the other items. I spent some time meditating on that piece of armor, and I came to some conclusions. The first is that I need to surround myself on all sides with the things that are true. And what are those truths?

For me, the truth I need to hold close and wrap around me begins with the fact that God loves me. He has loved me and continues to love me with an “everlasting love.” (Jeremiah 31:3) That’s important because when my heart is breaking, I’m not usually feeling very loved…not by God and not by anyone else. A second truth is that He will never leave me nor forsake me. (Deut 31:6) There have been times when I felt and times even now when I still feel completely overwhelmed. If I relied on my feelings about whether God is there for me, I would quit. However, I don’t have to rely on my feelings alone. I have the defense of His promise that He will be there for me.

Perhaps the greatest truth of all to me is found in Jeremiah 29:11: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (NIV) I can trust that God is working according to His plan whether I can understand that plan or not. That plan is not to harm me, and it’s not to harm the people I love, including my prodigal. The plan God had in place for me was determined in eternity past, before He laid the foundations of the earth. And everything that has happened in my life…both the good and the bad…were part of His plan to give me “hope and a future.”

We may not always be able to see God’s hand in what’s happening, and we aren’t always going to understand what God is doing or why He is doing it. How can we when “His thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways?” (Isaiah 55:8-9) But that doesn’t make it less true. And it’s one of the truths…in fact, the main truth that we can wrap around ourselves like a belt…like a piece of armor to protect ourselves in this battle so we can stand.

Challenge for Today: Can you, just for today, claim some truths from God’s Word and wrap them around yourself like the belt of your armor?