Ephesians chapter 6, verses 11ff, describes the Christian as a soldier resisting the power of evil and remaining faithful in his discipleship.
In thinking about this my mind went back to when I lived in Brunei and worked as PA to the Commander of the Royal Brunei Malay Regiment. Brunei is a very hot and humid country on the island of Borneo and memories came flooding back – some good and some not so good! I remember big, fat, green caterpillars which, if you tried to move them, would spray a liquid at you – this didn’t hurt people just irritate, but would kill small insects. I thought of the large fern-like plants with glossy leaves but to protect themselves they had vicious sharp spines sticking out underneath the leaves. All of these things are nature’s way of protecting itself.
At the moment we are all wearing masks to protect others and you from the coronavirus, I wear gloves when gardening and you can probably think of many other examples.
Many of Jesus’s parables teach us how to live our lives and the more we read and absorb his teaching the more we will have an inbuilt armour to help us cope with all that is going on around us.
One of my favourite texts is Jesus’s commandment to his disciples:
Jesus said, “Love one another as I have loved you” (John15.12)
And if we do this it will certainly help the world go round.