LSEM > Devotions > Reinforced

Reinforced

  • March 4, 2019
  • Posted by: Carolyn Mahal
  • Category: Devotions
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Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. – 1 Peter 5:8-9

I recently heard the story of Abraham Ward. He was a statistician who was summoned by the U.S. Navy during World War II to help them solve a problem. Attempting to reduce the number of airplanes being shot down, the Navy wanted to analyze where their planes were being hit by the enemy and reinforce the armor accordingly. To this end, a group was given data which showed the locations of bullet holes in the planes which had been in combat. Many members of the panel concluded that the areas where the holes were most common were the obvious places that needed to be reinforced.

Abraham Ward disagreed. He proposed that the places where the armor needed to go were around the nose of the plane, the mid-body, and the engines – places which the data showed were completely undamaged. This didn’t make sense to the rest of the panel until Wald explained that they were looking at the information incorrectly. The holes they discovered were in the planes that had survived enemy attacks. The fact that the pilots could fly planes with damage in those areas showed those places didn’t need extra protection. Conversely, none of the surviving planes had damage in the areas around the nose, mid-body or engines. Therefore, the data was showing that any plane hit in those three critical areas didn’t survive and those were the places the armor needed to be reinforced.

As I read about Ward’s story, I was struck by the way it parallels the lives of Christians and how we deal with attacks from our enemies, Satan and our sinful nature. Many of us can look at the course of our lives and run the data to prove that we’re not all that bad. Most of us have never murdered someone, stolen a car, burned down a building, or kidnapped a child. Some of us have never stolen money, cheated on our spouse, lied on our taxes, or vandalized someone’s property. A few of us have never run a red light, looked lustfully at another person, told a dirty joke, or said a naughty word when something went wrong. Many of us have gossiped about another person, told a lie, disobeyed our parents, and lost our temper. Finally, as Romans 3:23 confirms, all of us have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God.

Thankfully, because of God’s great love for us we don’t have to be destroyed by our sin. God chose to look at us differently, despite our broken state and find a solution. Through Christ, we are not only forgiven, but we are renewed, restored, and returned to a right relationship with God, redeemed by the blood of our Savior.

Knowing that we have been given this great, undeserved gift, let us live our lives renewed by the powerful, reinforcing armor of the word of God. Let the Holy Spirit guide us and may we seek God through prayer so that we may continue to follow the path on which He has placed us. Give thanks to God for seeing past our sin to help us become eternal survivors.

Devotion by Richard Schumacher

LSEM Director of Programs & Services