Links and Chinks

In a talk given by M. Russell Ballard, titled Be Strong in the Lord, Elder Ballad spoke of the Armor of God being less like Plate armor, with few, large pieces of metal covering large portions of the body; and more like Chain mail armor, with countless interconnected metal rings. Each ring can represent an act, good or evil, that either strengthens the armor or weakens it. Good acts are sturdy rings, creating strong links to the other rings, and ultimately forming strong Chain mail armor. Evil acts are flimsy rings, loosely connected to one or two other rings, perhaps not even a solid loop. Such rings leave us with weak points in our armor, "chinks" which the adversary can exploit to attack us.

It's worth noting that each individual ring is tiny. Elder Ballard said that "it has been my experience that there is not one great and grand thing we can do to arm ourselves spiritually. True spiritual power lies in numerous smaller acts woven together," or in this case, linked together to form strong chain mail armor. The greatness of our deeds is largely inconsequential. Rather, what is more important is the total number of good deeds and our consistency in performing good deeds rather than evil ones.

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Similarly, chain mail armor is weakened by having weak links in it. We should try to be aware of the weak rings in our armor and the chinks that they create, and try to replace those weak links with stronger ones. This, ultimately, means changing our behavior and habits, so that we do fewer evil acts and more good ones. The more good acts we do, the more strong rings we add to our chain mail, and the stronger our armor becomes.

Let us do more good acts and fewer evil ones, however grand or small those acts may be, so our armor can have stronger links and fewer chinks.