By Michelle Snippe
I just wanted a pair of socks.
That matched.
And had no holes.
I fumbled through the drawer moving this pair and that, rooting through some undergarments and unmentionables along the way. To be honest, the drawer was a mess and it wasn’t easy achieving my simple goal.
But while I was digging, I began to hear whispers of it. That voice rising from within telling me that, because my drawer was a mess, my life must be too. Entirely rooted in a lie I had absorbed years before stating that, if your house is a mess, your life must be as well, I began to spiral into a pit of demeaning inner discourse.
As the seconds ticked by that verbiage got loud and it started to say some terrible things to me.
“You know that thing you did for the Lord last week? You did a horrible job.”
“Why can’t you just get that project finished. You’re so slow.”
“How is it you are never organized? Your family would be able to function much better if you would just get your act together.”
The voice shouted these and many other accusations at me for a very long five minutes.
Do you have any idea how many self-degrading lies you can tell yourself in five minutes? How many past years you can find faults from in those three hundred seconds? A lot.
And it all started because I was looking for a pair of socks.
You know, the devil is sly. He knows just where to aim his arrows. His timing and placement are impeccable. And, it’s easier, some days than others, to succumb to his marksmanship.
After those seemingly long minutes of damaging dialogue, I finally told myself to STOP.
STOP beating myself up.
STOP telling myself things that aren’t true.
STOP feeding my mind all my perceived failures.
STOP focusing on the arrows and start fighting them.
But, how does one divert those blazing lies that so easily burn their way into our hearts?
There’s only one way: with the sword of the Spirit.
Paul writes in Ephesian 6:17,
“Take the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.”
Part of God’s armor, the word of God is to be taken up with the same frequency as the other pieces are to be put on: daily.
It is filled with the purest of truth designed to defeat the lies the devil so strategically sets out to hurl and sear into our spirit.
It is our weapon of offense. With it, we fight back. And with it taken up in our hand alongside our shield of faith, we extinguish the flaming darts, never allowing them to make their mark.
By the power of the Word, we proclaim the truth. Beautiful truth, like…
I am forgiven.
I am never alone.
I am known and loved.
I am of great value to God.
I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Sweet friend, maybe the lies are ringing loud in your life right now. Maybe the arrows are assaulting you relentlessly and with so much intensity that you just want to crawl away and hide.
Please know this: the battle is not lost. You have a weapon. A sword, which is the Word of God.
It’s the strongest fighting certainty you and I have against the enemy’s strategy to send us spiraling into his pit of lies.
So, read it. Memorize it. Meditate on it. Believe it. And take the hand it offers to pull you up, out and onto higher ground.
