Then Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him and a bronze helmet on his head. David fastened on his sword over the tunic and tried walking around, because he was not used to them. “I cannot go in these,” he said to Saul, “because I am not used to them.” So he took them off. Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine.…David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.”
Devotional: Even as a young man, David knows both himself and God. Having taken off Saul’s armor, he goes up against the nine-foot Goliath with only his sling shot and a few stones, confident in the living God. Unlike David, however, the vast majority of us go to our graves without really knowing who we are. We unconsciously live someone else’s life, or at least someone else’s expectations of us. We are unaccustomed to being our true self that it can seem impossible to know where to begin. Thomas Merton describes what we so often do: I…love to clothe this false self…and I wind experiences around myself with pleasures and glory like bandages in order to make myself visible to myself and to the world, as if I were an invisible body that could only become visible when something visible covered its surface. But there is no substance under the things with which I am clothed. I am hollow…And when they are gone there will be nothing left of me but my own nakedness and emptiness and hollowness…The path we must walk to remove the layers of our false self is initially very hard. Powerful forces around and inside us work to smother the process of nurturing the seeds planted in each of us. At the same time the God of the universe has made His home in us (John 14:23). The very glory God gave Jesus has been given to us (John 17:21-23).
Have you been shutting out feelings of self-doubt, uncertainty? Have you been putting up a face for the rest of the world to see, hoping that by convincing others of something, you’ll convince yourself? Do you neglect your feelings, your identity, the state of your soul and spirit? Out of personal experience, I will tell you that if you continue to do this you’ll get to a point (if you haven’t already) where you will completely drain yourself, and you’ll be unable to keep up the act in front of others, but more importantly, in front of yourself. Take it from a woman who’s had a lot of experience in the masquerade department. You DO NOT want to keep neglecting yourself. Had I acknowledged what was inside me much earlier, I may not have been in such a state as I am now. What sad excuse for a bandage are you trying to wrap your wounds in? Maybe it’s time you stopped trying to just stick a bandage on it, and you examined it, maybe put some “antibiotics” on it, because the longer you leave a wound untreated, the more likely it will become infected and become systemic. If you don’t take care of something inside of you, it will inevitably spread and lead to other problems. Stop the neglect. Open your wounds, and give them to the Healer. Just like an earthly physician, He can’t heal you if you don’t come to Him seeking care first.
God bless!
Marina
PLEASE KEEP THE PERSECUTED AND THOSE SERVING THEM, AS WELL AS THE ORPHANED IN YOUR PRAYERS!
