Train to Use All the Armor

Ephesians 6: 10-18: "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 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.”

For those of you who read these articles last year, you may recall that I set a personal goal for myself: to complete a 100-mile training ride before last year’s Tour. The entire focus of training last year was on this goal. Early in my training I had a flat tire. I attempted to fix that tire, but the tube burst during inflation. Instead of figuring out what caused the flat, I switched bikes so I could make progress toward my 100-mile training ride. On the first day of the Tour last year, I had 7 flats. I made it into Hibbing and purchased Wal-Mart’s entire inventory of bike tires in my size. I eventually made it through the 2nd and 3rd day of the tour, but I frequently thought that I should have spent more time on bicycle repair instead of focusing exclusively on making a 100-mile bike ride.

In our spiritual walk, we can do the same thing. We can focus solely on one or two parts of our armor, leaving other parts of our spiritual bodies exposed to the enemy. We can focus exclusively on Bible memorization, for example, which is a good thing to do, but, if we hang our spiritual hats on our ability to quote Bible references and neglect the application of those Words, we could become like to those who go to church on Sunday morning and then curse at the waitress at lunch time.

One of the reasons that I love the Tour de Togo, is that every year I train for and bike in the tour, I am spiritually strengthened on many fronts. Training for the Tour is hard to do, but so is our Christian walk. When we put effort towards the Tour and persevere in our efforts, we will then know that we can persevere in other spiritual endeavors that God presents to us.

Over the next few months, we will be looking into different ways that the Tour strengthens our own spiritual armor, and helps others with building their spiritual armor as well. I hope that you will join us in this study, and I look forward to seeing all of you in July!

-Matt Robinson

Published 2/20/2022

#TourdeTogo