Читать книгу Letting Go - Linda Estes - Страница 5

1…USING GOD’S EXTINGUISHER

Good morning! The other night I was sitting outside on my patio with a girlfriend talking about a situation of one person constantly trying to make life difficult for another person and whether we could do anything to stop the instigator. My train of thought got interrupted by a mosquito that bit me. I fixed that problem by putting on my fire pit. With that on, there were no more bugs bothering us. As we talked, and I watched the flames, a couple of things came to mind. First, there are many people out there that are just like the mosquitoes … a pest, a nuisance, but only for a short time. And then there are those who let the enemy use them to throw fiery arrows at us. We all know how to handle mosquitoes but how do we handle the second kind of difficult person?

Ephesians 6:16 says, “...In addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.” There are so many things I love about this verse. First of all, we are given a SHIELD OF FAITH through the power and authority of Jesus Christ. The Lord doesn’t just leave us hanging out there to try and fend off people that want to hurt us. Second, I love that with this shield of faith, we are given the power through Jesus to extinguish ALL the flaming arrows of the evil one. I’m so glad that the Lord didn’t say, “Here are a dozen, one-time uses for your shield. Use them wisely.” Again, the Lord doesn’t leave us hanging. He has provided us the Shield of Faith to use whenever fiery arrows come our way, with no limit on the number of uses. And third, I love the fact that the Lord says that those shields will EXTINGUISH all the flames. Not slow them down or deflect them off us for now, but to totally put them out … extinguish them.

When my girlfriend left, I turned off my fire pit, which totally extinguished the flames. And as I put the lid on the pit, I thanked God for giving us all we need to extinguish the fiery arrows from those that mean us harm.

Lord, help us use the tools that You have so graciously given us. Amen.