Our defensive armor is made up of things like: a 401K plan, boundaries with people who might hurt us, locks on our doors, limited facebook-friends lists, knowledge about how to treat illnesses, a take-charge attitude when things get chaotic, and a recouping plan when rest is needed.
These are not bad things. They are good. They are tools that God made to help us thrive in this world. But unfortunately, they don't guarantee our safety. Somehow, despite all our efforts at planning and analyzing and making boundaries, the world and its unhealthy people still seem to find chinks in our armor.
The stock market takes a dip. COVID regulations sabotage our plans yet again. A loved one gets in a car accident. Forceful people elbow their way into our lives. Friends make false assumptions about us.
It's unsettling to say the least.
The fear we have when these unpredictable things occurs reveals the chinks in our armor. Turns out the metal plating wasn't enough to protect us.
We have two choices: to fill in the gaps or to rethink the armor entirely.
Most people, I believe, fill in the gaps. They think up a new way to withdraw or limit their friendships or buy more insurance or prepare for the next dangerous encounter. They think, "How can I ensure that that uncomfortable situation never occurs again?" These are the people who become more and more encased in their armor. It becomes their prison.
The other option is to rethink the armor entirely by asking: what exactly am I trying to protect?
I'm going to wager that we're trying to protect any number of things within ourselves: our equilibrium on planet earth, the value of our ideas, the sense of our goodness, our physical bodies, our reputation, our hope in something to come, etc.
Boiled down, I think we're trying to protect three things: our exercise of power, our feelings of safety, and our sense of being loved.
Chinks in our armor threaten these three things. When someone comes up with an idea that we thought of first, we feel our ingenuity (love) threatened. When someone makes demands upon our time, we feel our energy (power/safety) threatened. When someone writes an offensive facebook comment, we feel our sense of being understood or being good (love/power) attacked. When someone tells us about a new strand of COVID, we feel our future (safety) is in jeopardy.
Threats to our armor are around every corner.
But take hope. There is an all-powerful God behind everything that threatens us. He has every dangerous situation and abusive person beneath his power, and in his hands, he can wield them like a surgeon's knife. He means to pry off our armor, not because it's bad or un-useful, but because we're using it the wrong way. This armor was meant to be tools in our hands and not a confining prison.
So long as we lock ourselves in this armor, we can't grow. God wants to teach us that we don't have to protect our sense of power, safety, or love. He can. We can live in this dangerous world and be intimately and organically connected with Holy Spirit power, God's Almighty's omniscient provision, and Jesus Christ's love.
When our hearts are full, we don't feel this desperate need for the armor: the group of friends who always understands, the responsible babysitter, the savings account, seatbelts, the right to vote, family nearby, a tidy home, well-behaved kids, a vaccine, etc. Remember, these are all gifts from God. We pursue them and give thanks if and when we have them, but they can't guarantee we'll continue having this exercise of power, unconditional love, or no fear of the future. They are not God, nor can they protect us from the uncomfortable truth that we need God to meet these needs every minute of every day.
Maybe that's what Matthew 10:28 means when it says, "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell."
The most dangerous person on earth is God himself. He can at an instant shake our world to reveal all the chinks in our armor. He could with a breath from his mouth strip us of all our armor so that we are a naked quivering soul: face to face with either our emptiness of God or our total reliance upon him.
But usually, I think God uses life circumstances and people to crack the armor ever so slightly, beaconing us, "Don't use these things like this. Don't cage yourself in. The day is coming where this armor will not protect you against me anymore. And then there will be no chance left but to fall before me and worship . . . either out of fear or awe."
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