Still Waters Moment The Armor of God: Pray in the Spirit on All Occasions

Ephesians 6: 10-20 10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.  18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. 

We must always remember that the armor in the scripture is the armor of God, meaning that if the armor is to be effective, we need to be in constant communication with Him, meaning prayer.  Ephesians 6: 18 begins, “And pray in the Spirit on all occasions…”.  Hopefully as we grow in our Christian walk, the “all occasions” is becoming second nature.  This may include such things in a typical day as praying in the morning that God cover you and your loved ones throughout the day.  If you pass a car accident, making a point to pray for all involved.  Praying over our meals.  Praying for a coworker who just shared of a tough time they are going through.  Praying before a meeting that your mind remains alert and a guard over your lips, etc.  

The examples listed above are probably typical prayers for most Christians.  For the purposes of this devotional, I want to focus on the occasions of praying to God when we are experiencing emotions that we may be embarrassed or hesitant to go to God with.  Furthermore, we may even believe that we are supposed to “get ourselves together” and that the feelings must be gone before we approach Him.  I grew up believing this and I will never forget the instance that God challenged my wrong thinking.

I was part of an organization made up of people in various roles in the education field in the Philadelphia area.  We gathered monthly to discuss matters of race in education.  There were about eight of us in one particular meeting and we were creating a presentation for a conference we were invited to present for.  This annual conference is a prominent one that happens in Philadelphia and education professionals from all over the region attend.  When the presentation had been finalized, I noticed I wouldn’t be saying much compared to the other seven.  I was livid about this because a lot of the content was based on my experiences with educating my students about race.  I took the el train home after the meeting and as it zoomed past the neighborhoods, I was enveloped in seething anger.  In the moment I knew I would eventually pray about it but not until I calmed down. I felt a prompting from the Holy Spirit telling me to bring the anger to Him.  This surprised me because in my mind, I didn’t want to offend Him with it.

However, an amazing thing happened.  The Holy Spirit told me to think about the why behind the anger.  A few things came to the surface.  One thing He helped me to see was that this situation touched on my insecurities regarding my perceived value compared to the others. Many of them had higher degrees and or positions than I did which made me struggle with thinking their voices carried more weight and value than my own.  Furthermore, my perception was that they agreed with this notion and the proof was in the speaking assignments in the presentation.  My value is something I had struggled with for most of my life which is why I internalized this situation the way that I did. 

The Holy Spirit went on to tell me that I am His first which meant there was a big possibility I would be used by Him for a specific assignment in any given environment. He would use me despite what was in the order of the presentation and His will for me will always take precedent over man’s.  During this entire interaction with the Holy Spirit, I was in awe that He was engaging with me in the moment of my anger, something I felt was sinful and bad and needed to be done away with before I approached His throne but that wasn’t the case.  Since I took it to Him, He was in it with me and helped me through it. By the time I reached my stop, my anger had dissipated and I felt encouraged. 

I find that many of us are hesitant and or avoid prayer altogether when we are experiencing strong emotions that feel negative.  These emotions include anger, resentment, jealousy, lust, etc. that may foster shame which the enemy tries to use against us. Shame tends to lead to hiding, or what we think is hiding which is ludicrous because nothing is hidden from God so we might as well bring the feelings before Him.  When we don’t present these feelings to God, they can fester, deepen and grow bigger to the point of being unmanageable and seen by many.  Another benefit to sharing them with God is our “recovery time” is shorter and lends itself to victory in the spiritual battle.  When we are “in our feelings” and managing the emotions on our own that leads to distraction from fighting the battle, wasted time and the need to recover lost ground.  We need the help of our Father to overcome the emotions as we cannot manage them on our own.

Again, Ephesians 6:18a says to pray on all occasions.  The enemy wants us to “hide” our negative emotions from God because he knows the benefits of going to God about them include dissecting underlying issues, (such as feeling undervalued in the above account), which enlightens, grows and frees us.  Addressing the emotion at its inception by bringing it before God prevents it from growing out of control.  We learn that God is with us and helps us, “even in this”. 

Reflection:  Are there any feelings/situations you are hesitant to pray to the Lord about?  If so, please do not give into the enemy’s tactics but consider all you have to gain by bringing it to our loving Father that wants us to come to Him on all occasions.