Ephesians 6:16
In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. (NIV)

I talk a lot lately in my posts about the enemy and the attacks that we must offset and prepare for in the future. Some of my scenarios are easy to understand—strife in families, terrible tragedies that come out of nowhere, and feelings that leave us ostracized or confused. Other scenarios are more difficult, like the idea of temptations, indiscretions, or the guilt born of bad decisions and behaviors that do not make us proud. These are hard concepts to rectify or justify. They are uncomfortable and, many times, not able to help us remain good Christians or devoted to our families. Still, we have these minor infractions against what we feel is our good character.

Let me point out now that if we allow the enemy to tempt us into bad business deals and questionable personal decisions, we let the enemy win.  Once we extract ourselves from these situations and make amends, but then again allow him to torture us with guilt, memories, and feelings of inadequacy, then we are allowing him to win yet again. Part of staying vigilant when the enemy is close is making sure that he cannot get to us again and send us off track or make us less effective.  We need to extract ourselves from bad situations, note them for future reference, learn from the experience, make amends with God and our loved ones, and move on. Above all, we need to forgive ourselves and use our experiences to become better than we were previously.

I firmly believe that the flaming arrows sent our way by the enemy are not the visible, terrible things that can happen in life. Instead, they are the attacks from behind, in the night, or when we are not looking. They are the jabs at us when we are down or vulnerable and just waiting for someone to nudge us into self-loathing or turning away from God in shame. It is in these moments that we must be ready with our shields, born of experience, strife, and even guilt and shame, to offset what the enemy throws at us. Remember, I have posted before on the value of these past bad experiences, and I firmly believe that we need to use them for positive growth as opposed to negative retrospection.