What Does it Mean to Stand?

“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.” Ephesians 6:24

So, what exactly does it mean ‘to stand’?  While I am sure there are probably multiple answers to that question, I’d like to offer one example.

When I dream I have the uncanny ability to be between conscious and sub-conscious; knowing within my dream that I am dreaming, yet not being able to wake myself up.   It’s difficult to explain, but my mind consciously knows that it is in it’s sub-conscious.  Sounds pretty messed up, and in real-life-time it’s pretty frustrating.

For years I had a recurring dream.  Each time the scene was different, but the theme was the same.  They were tornado dreams.  The dreams would seem to come randomly, and not terribly often, thank goodness.  But when I did have one it was unnerving.  This went on for years, but the frequency increased after I had my son.  Usually after the tornado had devastated everything in my dream world, I could not find my child.  Sometimes someone would even come and tell me he was dead.  Time would seem to drag like winter molasses and my body was heavy and fluid and had no muscle.  I would cry and wail and find it nearly impossible to breathe.  My conscious mind knew it was only a dream, but as hard as I tried I could not snatch myself from it.  I would wake up tired and sad and afraid.

The dreams seemed to intensify.  In full color the world around me would spin in a screaming ferver.  Homes were ripped apart, trees uprooted and people displaced.  Always afterward there was that calm.  The eerie calm that makes you think there is still more to come.

As time passed it really bothered me that I was having these dreams.  I wanted to know why, and how to stop them.  They were so random that I could never pinpoint a thought from the day that made me dream this way at night.  I couldn’t grasp why my mind was so afraid.

Then one night it happened.  The tornado was so real.  I was in my front yard and it came from the east end of the street.  It was tremendous and violent and wanted to destroy me.  I fell to my knees.  Then face down in the grass.  I dug my fingernails so far down into the lush green grass that the dirt was packed under my nails.  I held on for what seemed an eternity.  Eyes forced shut, dirt and debris whipping through the air, the sounds, the smells, the feel.  The gutteral sounds too raw to repeat.  I dug harder into the ground with my nails and forced my feet to stay to the earth.  I could feel the ripping fingers of wind on my back and racing through my hair. The tornado passed over me and was suddenly gone. 

I slowly opened my eyes.  Unclenched my hands and feet from the gound; they were stiff from such intense clenching.  I can still remember what the dirt under my nails smelled like.  I had grass in my mouth, dirt on my face, my clothes were a filthy mess.  But I was alive and my life was intact.  There was no damage.  No destruction. No death.

You see, I did not have to defeat the tornado.  I just had to not let the tornado defeat me. 

I believe when God tells us to “stand” he wants to do the defeating for us.  We just have to stand our ground and not let what is coming at us defeat us.  I didn’t have to fight the tornado,  I just had to not let it take me.  By not fighting, but standing my ground, I won.  It won’t always be easy.  It took every ounce of muscle, will and courage I had to hold onto my ground and not let the tornado take me.  I was exhausted and looked bedraggled, but it was worth every bit of fight I had in me.  So often that’s how the situations in our lives leave us.  But if we stand our ground, no matter how tattered we are when it’s over, we still win!

p.s. I haven’t had a tornado dream since.