Sunscreen Sunburns

My best friend at the beach is sunscreen. Not just any sunscreen, but the 50 SPF with Zinc. The kind that you have to rub in for hours to get it to blend in and nit make you look like a beach bum albino. Not because the sun and I don't get along, we do. I love the sun, being in the sun, and relaxing it in the sun. It's just that as much as I love the sun, God made my skin type special. Special as in the sun loves me so much it burns. This kind of sun-love does indeed hurt. So I lather and rub, and rub, and rub. The first day of vacation is always the test for me, after a long drive and months of anticipation, intend to overdue my time in the sun the first day. So this year I was going to be extra careful and super prepared. In preparation for a few family hours at the beach I began rubbing in sunscreen 30 minutes before heading out. And after I was rubbed and lathered, then rubbed some more I made sure all the kids were adequately sun-blocked.
 The afternoon was great. We played, relaxed, read, listened to music, built sand castles, and had an amazing day at the beach. Later that night my skin felt a little tight on my stomach. Nothing to be too concerned about, I was sure, after all I used protection. What can go wrong when you use protection, right? A few hours later it was obvious. My stomach was as red as the Worship Table paramount on Pentecost Sunday. I was burnt. I rethought my lathering and rubbing routine. I made sure my feet were saturated in sunscreen (just one good time of a foot sunburn at the beach and you make sure you don't do that again). I knew I covered my arms, legs, chest, even my ears in sunscreen. Then I realized, I had only forgotten one place...my stomach. The hours that I had spent in my new beach chair laid back soaking up the rays had not been as pleasant as I had thought. I thought I was protected. I thought the SPF 50 armor was deflecting the fiery flames from Helios with ease. But I was wrong. I was not fully protected. Though most of me was protected there was a small part that I had left open. And that small part was where the enemy attacked.
There is a contemporary worship song that says "be careful little eyes what you see...be careful little feet where you go..." The idea in the song is that we need to be completely covered head to toe with the love and Grace of Jesus to survive this world, and that we need to be careful what we look at at, and where go, as that may be where temptation lies in wait.
Ephesians 6 refers to this as putting on the full armor of God. That may seem a lot different than my sunscreen analogy, but I think they are quite similar. The one area that I left open (uncovered) was the one place I got burnt. The places where we leave open in our lives are the places where we will get burnt. Maybe it is the seemingly innocent  relationship with a co-worker, the practice at work that your boss doesn't know about, or the time you spend doing something that you wouldn't want your spouse, children, or church friends to know about, the thoughts we think about others. These are the places you will get burnt. These are unprotected places.
My prayer for us today is that we allow the Holy Spirit to show us this places now.
 Show us the places where we tend to be weak.
Show us the areas where we are exposed, open, and vulnerable to attack.
Show us now before we get burnt.
 And give us the strength to let the light of Jesus burn away those dark places with His Love and forgiveness.
Grace&Peace!