Ephesians 6:16 instructs us, “In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one.”
Yet what happens when the darts get through? Implied in the verse is this can happen. By faith we are to extinguish the flaming darts. Meaning, by relying on God—trusting who he is and what he’s done in Christ and who he’ll be for us—we put up a shield which blocks the enemy’s arrows. They pierce our shield of faith but not us.
But we lack perfect faith. “I believe, help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24).
The enemies arrows therefore sometimes do get through.
What then?
Pierced Recently
This struck me recently when I was struggling with anxiety about something in life. I continued to hold to what I believe in my head, and I even as a pastor often taught these correct truths about God to my congregation. Yet as for me personally, I was struggling in my heart, with the feeling of it all. My anxiety caused moods, fears, uncertainties. Now to be clear, it wasn’t crippling doubt, nor any sort of massive outward disobedience. But it certainly was stress caused by a lack of faith.
And I knew it. That’s what pressed me to think about it as an arrow. In one of those moments I was feeling such moody anxiety that Ephesians 6 came to mind. I thought, “I should lift up the shield of faith.” But honestly, my feeling of faith was weak. That’s why the arrow was piercing. It wasn’t killing me. But it hurt.
Arrows From Evil, Yes, But Ultimately From God
What helped me most was when I considered how the arrow that had pierced was, by definition, “of the evil one,” yes—Satan hates me, hates God, hates my faith. He loves my hurt, my anxiety, my lack of heart-felt faith in God. He doesn’t mind mental assents to truths; his demons even possess that (James 2:19). But he hates faith (after all, it’s a lack of the shield of faith that grants his arrows access).
So yes, the arrow was from evil. But what comforted me was that the arrow wasn’t merely or mainly from evil. Rather, God is sovereign over all—including my anxieties, including all evil (cf. Job 1:21).
This is a profound realization when the arrow is lodged: My anxiety hurt, it was a lack of faith, and it was from Satan and not good in itself. And yet, God was sovereign. Which meant in a real way, then, the arrow piercing me ultimately was from God.
That change then allowed me to see, “Okay, this arrow hurts my heart. But God’s in control of this.” And with that, my thoughts transformed from, “This hurts because I don’t have enough faith” to “Why is God allowing this arrow to pierce?”
Which finally, above all, led to seeing that I should view the arrow not mainly as an attack from the enemy that got through, but as God’s grace to me. “For those who love God all things [including flaming darts that got through] work together for good” (Romans 8:28).
Arrows of Faith
The ironic thing is that once I realized this, the arrow that hurt become a strange positive reality. It still hurt. But all the sudden, it was there for a reason—a good, God-given reason.
What was the exact reason? I’m not sure. I’m sure it produced many positive, sanctifying effects. And perhaps in eternity we’ll see the myriad of good effects of each evil God allows us to face. But in the end, I don’t know for certain.
But what I do know is that if the evil one hates faith, what God loves and what God’s grace produces in us is more faith. His grace makes us trust him more.
That’s therefore the ironic twist about these arrows. When they get through, they pierce due to a lack of faith. But for the Christian, since arrows lodged in the heart hurt, they therefore make us cry out to God—which in turn produces new faith that we wouldn’t have had without the arrow.
That’s what happened to me. All the sudden, with the hurting arrow lodged in my heart and with the realization that the arrow was ultimately from God’s good plan, I started to rely more on God.
Lack of faith eventually gave rise to faith.
Satan’s arrows, eventually, produced faith.
“A Thorn” and “Messenger of Satan” Become “My Grace”
That’s my experience. But is it biblical? Yes, and many places show us. The primary example may be 2 Corinthians 12. Many of us know the famous verse in the chapter, when Jesus comforts Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness,” to which Paul responds, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” (2 Corinthians 12:9).
But what we less often focus on is how God orchestrated Paul’s life so that he’d make such a statement. And how did it happen? Well, the grace of Christ came through God allowing a “messenger of Satan” to harass Paul.
“A messenger of Satan [was given] to harass me…’My grace is sufficient for you.’” (2 Corinthians 12:7, 9).
And not only that, but how does Paul describe this messenger of Satan? “A thorn was given me in the flesh” (2 Corinthians 12:7). Sounds similar to a dart, a thorn, of the evil one, doesn’t it?
And finally, who gave the thorn? Paul writes, “a thorn was given me,” which is a passive voice verb. And while some interpreters think it was simply given by Satan, for us, knowing how God and the authority he gives to Satan works (from Job 1 and 2, for example), we should see, such an interpretation is shortsighted. For the messenger was “of Satan,” and Satan therefore had some real action in all this, and the thorn was evil. But who ultimately “gave” the thorn? Well, not Satan, but God. This is a divine passive verb, as they’re called, where Paul is assuming we know the “giving” was given by God.
As John Bloom, in an article at Desiring God, says about this verse, “It’s clear from the context that Paul identified God as his thorn-giver, not Satan.”
To sum up then: Paul experienced a messenger of Satan, a thorn. And it really hurt him. The satanic messenger was evil. But who was behind it? And for what purpose? God and to communicate Christ’s grace.
So it is for us. We are weak, but God is strong. We know that. but what we need to consider is that God sometimes reveals that to us—he produces that faith in us—by sending us thorns, by allowing arrows to get through, and even sometimes by using Satan himself.
God’s Intentions For Our Good
This is the beautiful truth of God’s good sovereignty over all evil, including our sins and lack of faith. And it matters when we feel those arrows. For when pain or anxiety or fear or situational difficulties—or whatever—come at us, we should trust God and deflect them away by faith in God—yes. But when we don’t and the arrow pierces, it is true, it’s our lack of faith that allowed it to happen, and such pain very well may be an attach from the evil one.
And yet the reality is, God is behind is there, behind and in it all, as well. For his glory, for our good.
Which means even in those moment of faithlessness, we can’t lose hope. For our weak faith is God’s opportunity to strengthen our faith.
Sharp arrows can become conduits of God’s gentle love.
Painful thorns can become life-giving vines.
And it’s all because we worship a God who is in control, who is good, and who can and does use evil messengers of Satan to show his grace. We worship a God who can say to all evil and to our wayward hearts, “In many ways, that was meant it for evil, but I always meant it for your good” (cf. Genesis 50:20)
