Got Your Helmet On?

In the flow of traffic this morning, I saw ahead of me a man on a motorbike. He wasn't dressed conspicuously, except for his gaudy helmet! I was reminded, then, that most states have a law mandating the protective helmet if you're driving a motorcycle, and many extend the law to a passenger as well. I know men—it could just as well be women—who would rather forego riding than be forced to wear a helmet. Well, cardiac surgeons are just waiting for the organ that some careless, unhelmeted rider may eventually donate. As the popular commercial says, "Don't leave home without it."

Even a kid needs a helmet.
Both kinds.



Another kind of helmet protects another part of our being. Protecting the brain is one vital requirement; protecting the mind is another. The Apostle Paul, writing to the Thessalonians, urges us, "But let us who live in the light be clearheaded, protected by the armor of faith and love, and wearing as our helmet the confidence of our salvation." (1 Thessalonians 5:8)

Where does all of the mind's input come from? Well, that's really too technical for me to talk about, but there are at least these: sensory impressions from the environment and the people in it, the state of our physical body, our hopes and plans and memories, and our perceptions outside the natural world (spiritual influences). The mind, like the "bowl" that encases the precious brain, should not be unprotected from what could damage it. We see wrecked lives, sometimes, and wonder just what happened. The trauma, we must realize, started in the mind; it did not spring all by itself from the circumstances around it. Confident salvation will help protect the mind.

Got your helmet on? Don't leave home without it.

MaryMartha

Scripture quotation is taken from The Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004.  Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. United States of America.  All rights reserved.

Art from http://www.sxc.hu/