Have You Dropped Your Spiritual Weapons?

When it comes to marrying one of God’s daughters, I’m not sure what some guys are thinking. Marrying God’s daughter is marrying the apple of God’s eye. Many of you reading this know exactly what I mean. If you have a little girl, you know she has a special place in your heart. You don’t want any pain to come into her life. Your desire to protect her is strong; it can bring out the papa bear in you really quickly if you think there is a threat of danger to her.

If you and I, who have a fallen nature, have so much love that it creates protection toward our daughters, then how much more would a perfect, all-knowing, all-powerful God feel toward His daughter, your wife? I hope you realize that when you marry God’s daughter, as I point out in my book The Miracle of Marriage, that means God is not just your Father but He is also your Father-in-law. He sees everything and knows even the things in your heart and mind. We all do well to realize that we have a Father-in-law, God.

Let me share with you Joe’s story and the event that was about to change his life. Joe was having an affair with a single-mom employee for whom he had developed feelings. All that went away as he was being served papers accusing him of sexual harassment. Joe didn’t see any of this coming. He had been intoxicating himself with lust secretly for years. This allowed him to operate in the dark until everything came out into the light, and yet one of the worst moments of Joe’s life was still to come later that day.

Joe had to go home and face a woman he had already cheated on in the past, who forgave him for his past behavior and loved him. He would now rip her heart out, stomp on it one more time, and this time his reckless behavior also threatened their business’ survival and reputation.

Joe had no choice. His lawyer said as a co-owner, his wife, Karolyn, had to know; there was no way to keep this a secret. Joe walked toward his unsuspecting wife, who had a nice dinner waiting and was happy to see him. Joe must have looked like death, because her first question was to ask Joe if he was sick. He told her no but that they needed to talk. Joe and Karolyn sat down, and he began to tell her a slightly sanitized story about his relationship with another woman.

Karolyn asked him to leave. As he was headed for a hotel, Joe realized that all in one day he lost his fantasy world, his lover betrayed him, his business was threatened, and he had devastated his wife again. She had been so good to him for decades, and he had quite possibly lost his marriage.

Why did all this break out in Joe’s life? He dropped his weapon! I believe that part of every man’s role in life is to be a protector. Throughout history, men have created weapons as symbols of protection—from bows and arrows, swords, guns, and tanks to fighter jets. Men have always protected with weapons. God gives you various weapons to protect yourself and those you love. These weapons include the fear of the Lord, wisdom, the Word of God, accountability, honesty with your spiritual authorities and spouse, porn blockers and accountability software. So many weapons are at your disposal.

Here is the limitation of these weapons: They can only go in one direction at a time. In other words, your protective gear or weapons, like Joe’s, are either facing the enemy or they are facing those you say you love. Now, I don’t think any man sits down and says, “I want to aim my weapons toward my family. I want to emotionally bludgeon my precious wife, sons or daughters. I want to destroy trust and create immense pain in my life and theirs.” Yet this is exactly what happened to Joe, his wife and family.

You and I need to aim our protective gear and weapons against the enemy’s plan for our lives so we don’t one day become the perpetrator of this crime of lying, cheating and hurting on those we love. {eoa}

Doug Weiss, Ph.D., is a nationally known author, speaker and licensed psychologist. He is the executive director of Heart to Heart Counseling Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and the author of several books including, Clean. You may contact Dr. Weiss via his website, drdougweiss.com or on his Facebook, by phone at 719-278-3708 or through email at [email protected].