I want to share with you a question that my five-year-old came up with here recently. It was after Bible school, and they’d been talking about doing the right thing or making mistakes, and how God forgives us when we make mistakes.  He asked, “why is making mistakes such a bad thing?” I said, “what?” I wasn’t expecting a question like that. It’s hard telling what he’s going to come up with! When I asked him, “what,”  he said, “why is sin such a bad thing?”

I thought for a minute to figure out how to explain that to a five-year-old, and I gave him an analogy. I told him that God provides protection under His umbrella, and when you are living rightly and have your spiritual armor on- when you’re doing the right thing, you stay under God’s protection under that umbrella. But, as soon as you start giving in to the temptation that’s around us because there are always “the villains” (because we watch Bibleman). The villains on the outside of the umbrella are tempting us to come out and follow the lies of the enemy and give in to the temptations that are out there.

How I explained it to him was that when we listen to the villains and we do what they’re trying to get us to do, then that pulls us outside of God’s umbrella of protection by our own choice. That’s what sin does. It’s not about the guilt and the condemnation and the shame. Yes, there’s guilt involved but it’s not that feeling guilty and overwhelmed because once you’ve made things right with God, and once you’ve repented and you step back under His umbrella of protection, all is forgiven.

The point is because when we step outside of that umbrella of protection, we’re no longer under His protection, we are exposed to those spiritual elements. We are exposed to the torment of the enemy. We’re exposed to the all the further temptation and the anxiety and the depression and all that when we are not aligning ourselves with God’s truth about who we are and who He is, or who we are to Him. Again, it’s not about guilt and condemnation, but will me align ourselves again with God we are back under His protection and we can resist that enemy… we can say, “uhmmm, I’m not going to listen to you. That’s not something that’s in alignment with God’s truth and I choose God’s truth.”

That is your breath prayer for this week. “God, I choose your truth.” When you’re tempted to listen to those villains that are that are taunting you from outside the umbrella, you say, “I’m not going that way because that only opens me up to all kinds of further torment and I’m not interested.” When we’re able to do that, we can stay under that umbrella of God’s protection, and that’s what I want for you ladies!

I want you to be able to stay under that umbrella of protection with God’s love and God’s grace and God’s forgiveness. It’s such a powerful, incredible thing, and if you have any questions about that or there is something about the analogy that isn’t clicking with you, let me know. Also be watching, probably this week, I’ll the opening up for some initial members at the reduced price for the anxiety ecourse. If there’s anything else I can do for you ladies, just let me know!

Have a wonderful and blessed week! Love you ladies!

Do you want to learn more about how properly wearing your spiritual armor helps protect you from our spiritual enemy? Check out my new book, Learning to “Fear Not” on Amazon!