When we were looking for homes, we specifically said we wanted a house that needed very little work. I have no HGTV fantasies. I don’t want to spend all of my time on home improvement. The one thing I was willing to do was paint, so this last weekend, that’s what my husband and I did. We painted one single room in our house.
Before pursuing this task, I did as I often do, a little internet research. If I was going to be painting, I wanted to do it correctly. This led me to look up what painter’s tape to use, and most things seemed to point to FrogTape brand which has “PaintBlock Technology” (PBT).
I was immediately curious what this “new technology” was, so I looked a little deeper. According to their website, PBT has “a super-absorbent polymer (SAP) that reacts with the water in latex paint and instantly gels to form a micro-barrier that seals the edges of the tape, preventing paint bleed and creating clean, crips paint lines.”
It turns out that SAPs are a specific type of polymer that were originally developed by the USDA in the 1960s to improve water conservation in soils. Their product gave water absorption greater than 400 times its weight compared to the previous materials like cotton, sponge, or tissue paper that only held up to 11 times its weight.
Although originally used for agricultural purposes, this technology is now used in several other industries. These polymers are the same technology in diapers that makes them super absorbent so that they don’t leak out. With both diapers and paint, you don’t want leaking. The polymers take in that liquid and say YOU SHALL GO NO FURTHER!
Based on the ad, this is amazing. Any time you can use science to make better products, I’m impressed. The manufacturer then goes on to make the claim, visualized in the ad, that you get perfectly crisp lines. NOTHING gets through. Looking at it, it got me thinking, when it comes to my spiritual defense, which kind of paint block am I? To tell you the truth, I feel like the tape on the right. I do a pretty good job of keeping temptations out, but I definitely fail. I definitely have weaknesses and things get through my defenses. Currently, with the new house and a small child and all the other things piled on that come with moving to a new state and starting over, I feel so overwhelmed and tired that I know my defenses are weak. It is in times like this that I need verses like this one from 1 Peter to remind me of what I should be doing:
“Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith…”
Resist him. I need to build a wall like the paint does, keeping everything evil out because the devil is trying to get in any way that I will let him. As I said, I am exhausted and this sounds so difficult, but scripture reminds me that if I have faith, I can succeed.
I believe that God is greater than the devil. I believe that God is stronger than my fatigue. I have faith that He can keep my walls strong. I don’t know how strong your walls are right now, but I encourage you to ask God for faith, to ask Him to help you to be strong in your spiritual defenses. We all could use some help. The Lord is willing and able to help if we only ask.
