Don't Forget Your Helmet

Wow, 2 years ago I posted this... last week's thoughts about helmets made me think of this so I thought I'd repost it.

A very funny thing happened to me yesterday…

I was sitting on my motorcycle, preparing to ride to a school meeting. I picked up my helmet and looked for the seam in the band that goes around the bottom of it so I would put it on the right way. As I looked at my helmet, I realized that it wasn’t symmetrical…. One end of it was wider than the other. Well, that sort of makes sense, heads are bigger around at the back than they are at the front. But then I realized that the seam in the band was at the narrow end of the helmet… and that seam is what I had always used to identify the back of my helmet. I mean, it’s sort of like a tag on a shirt, it ought to go in the back! I never looked at the stupid thing that way before. So, I put the helmet on with the seam in the front, and low and behold it was more comfortable that way. And the straps fit better. As I rode off down the road I was laughing hysterically inside at the absurdity of it. The further I got, the more comfortable the helmet became, and the more I laughed. I have been wearing that helmet for well over a year… backwards.

As I rode and laughed my mind began to rabbit trail along to other things. The thought of helmets led into the helmet of salvation, and I wondered if you could put on the helmet of salvation backwards. So many people think they are Christians because they come from a Christian family, or they go to church, or they aren’t really bad people and after all God wouldn’t really send anyone to hell, or if I do enough good things then God will love me. Or, people become Christians but never get beyond salvation; they never grow up to maturity. Then I thought about putting on the rest of the spiritual armor backwards. Which led me to Biblical principles in general. How many times have I thought I knew and understood something, only to find out later that I had been wrong? Or maybe not wrong, but my knowledge was incomplete. As I grow up in God, I am learning so many new things everyday; but also God reminds me often of the things I learned long ago but have forgotten, or He takes me deeper into the things I already knew – deeper into dependence on Him, deeper into His mercy, love and grace; deeper in the knowledge and wisdom of His love. The Christian life is not something you learn and do once and you are done. You do not arrive until heaven. This life is the journey, the ride. Along the way are many lessons to learn, some of them over and over.

So tell me, is your helmet on backwards? What lesson does God have for you today?

Rebecca A Givens