Ephesians 6:16–In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; 

From experience I believe that if we locate self-pity, we can “pin point” the area we we lack faith in.  When the evil one shoots “flaming darts”, it can be very difficult to look at and embrace, yet there are one of two ways we can take it. Eventually, we can embrace it as reality, and know it is something we have to fight in faith.  Or we can wallow in how difficult it is, and make excuses of how we shouldn’t have to fight.

The past six verses of this chapter in Ephesians is focused on being prepared for spiritual warfare.  That we need the whole armor of God in order to really endure as a Christian.  But the passage highlights a mentality that we must embrace.  It says that in all circumstances “we can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one”.  Now think about how much self-pity says we can’t…

Sometimes when life feels long and difficult, self-pity can seem like a normal emotion to have.  Always wondering if this or that will get better, so we don’t have to feel sorry for ourselves.  But eventually by God’s grace, you realize you don’t have to keep such a mentality.  That we can extinguish any dart from evil, that really is coming to lure us out of faith, and into self-pity and unbelief…

Responsibility is such a big part of our faith and living out true worship with Jesus.  The Bible says “you can extinguish all”, but self-pity says “I can’t”, which fails to accept the responsibility that you can!  Inevitably we live blaming everyone and everything for why we feel sorry for ourselves, and don’t live faithful.  When God knows that we don’t have to live a victim to our emotions or circumstances, but can fight back!

True worship has the grace to fight back, because we know He has gotten us the victory through Christ!

In His Love, Ld