In Ephesians 6:11-12, the Bible tells us to put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. I think I need a larger suit of armor because I think the devil’s schemes keep getting to me through my love handles that are protruding out my armor. What is this armor and what are these schemes? To put on the full armor of God, I basically have to do three things: 1. Spend time with God (ie. prayer, quiet time, etc.) 2. Spend time in God’s Word (aka The Bible) and 3. Spend time in fellowship with other believers. What are the devil’s schemes? That depends, he is going to use different schemes on different people depending on their specific weaknesses. One scheme he loves to use on me is pride.
I only need to look back at the last argument my wife and I had to see this in action. My wife and her best friend went away on a girl’s weekend. This gave me the opportunity to spend some solo time with my four daughters. So, I of course did what any other Dad would do when he has the chance to spend alone time with his kids, I locked them in the closet and prayed for sanity. Actually, the girls and I had a great weekend. I even had the great idea of cleaning up the house to make Mommy happy when she got home. My two oldest daughters bought into it and helped me clean (even my youngest would have helped if I would have put the Swiffer kneepads on her as she crawled about). Anyway, we had the house just about spotless and I was beaming with PRIDE as we met her at Church that night. She was nice and relaxed from her girls getaway and began telling me about how much fun they had. Great….you had fun….now where is my thanks for all the housecleaning I had just done that you don’t know about yet. As the Church service started…I could feel my ego puffing up already. As the Pastor was thanking the firefighters and the law enforcement officials for risking their lives during the recent Southern California fires, I could have swore he said, “and if any of you wives were recently away on a girls weekend, you need to be especially grateful to your husband when you get home tonight.”
Because we took separate cars (and because fat boy had to stop to pick up ice cream), my oldest daughter and I got home about 10 minutes after my wife, her friend, and our other daughters. When we walked into the house, my wife had the gall not to mention how great the house looked. Now, for all I know, she did a triple cartwheel when she walked in ten minutes ago and told the girls how nice it looked, but where was my thanks. We got the kids ready for bed and then I did the mature thing, and gave her the semi-silent treatment. “Nothing” was all she got out of me when she inquired about what was bothering me.
Of course, right before I left for work the next morning, I was done with the silent treatment and had to lay into her about such a trivial issue. Why? Because I’m an idiot? Probably. But also because my pride was blocking out my logic and compassion. As it says in Proverbs 13:10, “Pride only breeds quarrels”. Unfortunately, the devil has used that scheme on me more times than I can count. However, there have been a few times when I have in what could have easily turned into a prideful situation and God has been right there with me. Or a more correct way of saying that would be I was right there with God, he helped me stretch the armor all the way over my handles, and together we kicked the devil’s tail!
