While being a mom of 3, I am constantly bringing my diaper bag every where I go. I need it, it’s a necessity to life as I know it. Thinking back to when I first became a mom, the priorities for the standard of my diaper bag were so different compared to what it is now. I obviously knew I needed a diaper bag becoming a mom for the first time. My diaper bag was beautiful on the outside, it just made your eyes feel good to look at it, I got a ton of compliments on it and what other people thought of it made me feel good to be the owner of it. I also was given opinions of things that I would absolutely need in this diaper bag, but I soon realized that all of that “stuff” that I stored inside that diaper bag that I was told I needed actually dragged it down, made it heavy, hard to manage and a total chore to find anything inside of it that I would actually truly need to take care of this new life I was responsible for!
I have learned over time now that it isn’t about a beautiful diaper bag on the outside, or what others may think that I need to put inside it. I even realized that this beautiful on the outside diaper bag was pointless if it was missing things that were necessary in what the whole point of having a diaper bag was for. If it was beautiful and weighed down and heavy from things I really didn’t need that others were saying was important, or if it was beautiful and missing the things that I actually really did need and I was unprepared for those unexpected moments that this diaper bag was to hold for those very times, then the bag is pointless no matter its physical beauty. I have had quite a few times personally when I didn’t keep up with restoring the things in my diaper bag and caught myself in an unexpected situation being unprepared for that moment in time…I had procrastinated in taking the time to refill it.
Much like a diaper bag many of us believers find ourselves focusing on our outer appearance. How we are trying to make ourselves look from the outside though the inside may be very heavy and weighed down by life or even lacking on necessities that are the whole point of this “thing” called being alive. Realizing that we are over loaded because of it, procrastinating and thinking that there is always tomorrow, trying to put on a beautiful appearance to the world…when the only appearance to worry about is our hearts before God.
Just like the fact that it only matters what’s in the diaper bag for those moments of crisis…. it matters to take the time to “refill” on God’s Word constantly so you are not left unprepared.
God is the one who gives us the necessities to prepare us for those times of the unexpected, to put on the whole armor of God. He has given us direction on how to be prepared for those moments of crisis that are to come, and what really truly matters to God is what’s on the inside.
“Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.” Ephesians 6:13-18
(Kirsten Derichsweiler is a friend of Bishop Creek Community Church.)