If God had a Patronus...

DISCLAIMER: I am not saying that Harry Potter is God or that Harry Potter books have the same weight as Scripture. I am just drawing simple parallels. Nothing complicated. Just an, "Oh! This is cool," type of epiphany. 

I read the following verse this morning in my devotional:

 1 John 4:18, NLT: Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. 

And I was inspired by the word EXPEL. I love this translation of this verse because of the STRENGTH that can be found in the word EXPEL. The word itself is similar to REPEL; but stronger. When a magnet repels its opposite pole, it simply will not be pushed together. But when Perfect Love EXPELS fear, it does the pushing away. 

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I love our children. I really do. With every part of my being. They are the most perfect and best children to ever exist! There are days when I think to myself what did I do so right to deserve these beautiful blessings?

BUT- there are some days when I wonder what we have done wrong to deserve such punishment! There are days when my children bicker with each other, talk back to us, embarrass us, disobey, say no, throw fits, scream, cry, disobey, lie, etc etc etc...and on those days, I desperately plead to God to protect their little hearts from Satan because he works so hard to infiltrate their precious souls. 

Last night was one of those nights. Long story short, they both had to go straight to bed without story time or snuggle time or "one last drink" or "Where is my wolfie?" or "one more chapter." And my husband and I talked and prayed over them. And for ourselves. That we would find the right balance between guarding their hearts from the ways of this world and strengthening their hearts with a fortress of Biblical Truth. 

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 1 John 4:18, NLT: Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. 

So the word expels
bring an image to my mind of a FORCE (that of our God- i.e. Perfect Love) blasting away fear. But not only fear. Also things like anxiety, anger, or temptation. In my mind, this ALMIGHTY is blue...and kind of misty...and WAIT A MINUTE! In my mind, the act of God EXPELLING my fear is a PATRONUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I cannot explain how or why my brain works the way it does...take me or leave me. But nevertheless, from now on, whenever I think I need God to EXPEL my fear, anxiety, anger, temptation, I am going to say EXPECTO PATRONUM. Expecto Patronum (the Latin) roughly translates to "I await a Guardian."And actually, I think I am going to explain this visual to my children, too. 

Because I think there is a benefit to 

imagining God as a concrete something that ACTIVELY fights for you. 

(Because He does) 

And imagining God as a FORCE to be reckoned with 

(Because He is). 

And imagining God as a POWER that EXPELS evil 

(because He can). 

So if you run into me in the near future, and my kids are on the verge of allowing Satan to convince them to behave like MONSTERS, you may hear me say, "Expecto Patronum!" And I hope that reminder of God's ability to EXPEL evil, and the image of God's Perfect Love fighting our battles (AND WINNING THEM, btw!) is something that will help them to make good choices and encourage them that the Holy Spirit will always fight for them.

And also---because I know you are wondering---in my humble opinion, if God had a patronus, it would be a MOOSE. 

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