December 31, 2025

As we close 2025 (The Equipped’s third full year!), we want to say thank you! We are grateful to and for YOU! The Equipped will always be free, which is possible because one out of approximately every 60 readers will choose to support the mission. Would you choose to be one of those few in 2026? By giving to The Equipped, you are helping 60 others view all things through the lens of the True and the beautiful! Thank you and Happy New Year!

The True

Spies and Jammed Signals

Your life depends on it.

For nearly all of human history, war has been a reality. For as long as war has waged, one of the most important ingredients of victory has been access to accurate, secure, and reliable forms of communication. Naturally, wartime enemies are therefore constantly trying to steal, disrupt, or destroy each other's communication methods and capacities. They do so because their lives depend on it.

In modern warfare, this can be extremely sophisticated. It certainly includes defensive strategies such as using secure networks and encrypting important messages. It also includes offensive strategies like spying and eavesdropping or using technology to jam the signals of the enemy.

But not every effective tactic is sophisticated. Sometimes, all that is necessary is to inject confusion by simply flooding the zone with noise. This includes all the following tactics:

- Literally drowning out messages with meaningless sounds or signals

- Confusing the recipient by overwhelming them with fake but authentic-sounded messages

- Creating “noise” in the communications environment in order to significantly slow the process of receiving and implementing a directive

In other words, an enemy force doesn’t even have to block the message in order to render it useless. The enemy merely needs to create enough noise in the environment to distract the recipient for a while. In buying time with distraction, the enemy is able to carry out an attack and be gone before the message is acted upon.

Does this hit close to home for you? It does for me.

I know God’s Word. I love God’s Word. I aim to know it more and love it more every day until the day God calls me home.

But my friend, I am so easily distracted. There is so much noise in the communication environment, and I am so easily convinced it is crucial noise worthy of my rapt attention. Further, I am quick to determine the noise demands my immediate response.

It feels right. It feels honorable. But after I’ve given the noise my attention and my response, I so often realize I’ve done so at the cost of a delay in receiving, considering, and responding to the truly critical message my God was sending through His Word.

The enemy hadn’t blocked the message. He had simply filled the air with important-sounding noise and distracted me for a moment or two while he worked in the background. The distraction wasn’t particularly sophisticated, but it was so very effective. Potent even.

Friend, there is no getting around this. You live in a very noisy world. It is also a world at war. And while your enemy has a full bag of tricks to play on you, this one is just so readily available to him. It is wrapped in your natural longing for convenience and information, and even in your very noble desire to respond to the needs of the world around you.

All that is required for you to be distracted by the noise for a moment is for it to be placed into your earshot or eyesight just long enough. Just long enough to delay—not even derail, just delay—your receipt of what God is saying to you.

But take heart, you can fight back! It will not always be convenient. It will take discipline and intentionality, but you can tune out the noise in order to hear the one message from on high. How?

“Give ear and come to me; listen, that you may live . . . Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near” (Is. 55:3, 6).

My friend, it is up to you to tune out the noise. Its volume is only increasing, and that is by design of the enemy. If you are to be prepared to stand against the tactics of the enemy while you live on Earth, you must come close to your Lord, incline your ear only to Him, and seek Him while He may be found.

Don’t get delayed. Don’t be distracted. Those are tactics of the one who aims to destroy your soul.

Incline your ear to the one voice that speaks life. Listen attentively, as though your very life depends on it. It does.

World

Christmas Day Strikes in Nigeria

The United States launched a Christmas Day attack on ISIS forces in Nigeria, according to the White House and the Department of War. The strikes, which were conducted with the cooperation of the Nigerian government, were aimed at ISIS terrorist forces accused of mass slaughter of Nigerian Christians in recent months. In November, Nigeria was added to the U.S. list of “countries of particular concern” for its human rights violations, and President Trump warned at the time there would be additional action taken if the killings did not stop.

Analysis and eternal perspective: Nigeria consistently ranks—according to multiple groups who monitor and report on religious persecution—as one of the most dangerous places in the world for Christians. The reasons are complex and multi-layered, but the current dynamic is exacerbated by the fact that militant groups—most notably ISIS—exert a large amount of control by force and the Nigerian government is unable to offer sufficient deterrence.

While a military strike from a foreign actor will always be met with mixed opinions, this week’s strikes were unsurprising to most observers, as the U.S. and many other nations have been warning of increased intervention if the violence toward religious minorities continued.

As a Jesus follower, scripture is clear about your role in this story: You are to remember those being persecuted and you are to pray for them (Heb. 13:3). This story will fade from the headlines, as that is simply the news environment in which we live. But you and I must continue to remember those in harm’s way because of their faith. We must hold in fervent prayer our brothers and sisters who the Father calls “blessed” because of their persecution (Matt. 5:10).

Finally, this story should be a reminder for us to keep the challenges we face in perspective. You certainly have difficulty in life. We all do. It is so very easy to turn inward as a result of those struggles and to become mentally and spiritually absorbed by them. That tendency is suffocating. This story reminds us to pour our energy and prayer focus into holding up those who are being truly persecuted and killed on account of their faith in Jesus.

This association with suffering is both the way to bring relief to the persecuted and the method for lifting your eyes from all that afflicts you.

World

Christmas Eve Strike in Venezuela

The U.S. operations against alleged Venezuelan drug traffickers ramped up on Christmas Eve, according to U.S. President Donald Trump, who indicated that for the first time the U.S. strikes on alleged Venezuelan drug traffickers moved from offshore targeting of boats to an onshore facility believed to be an “implementation area.” Additional details about the strike were not immediately available to the public, but later reports suggest the CIA may have conducted the strike. Either way, the strike, if confirmed, represents a significant escalation of an operation that had previously been confined to offshore waterways.

Analysis and eternal perspective: Every escalation of war or military force carries with it reason for prayer. The biblical mandates to seek both peace (Ps. 34:14) and justice for the oppressed (Is. 1:17) often feel impossible to carry out together. When considered alongside and applied to a story like this one, it results in a wide array of viewpoints among Jesus followers.

But even amid a wide range of opinions about the appropriate responsive tactics, we can be unified in the following according to the scriptural edicts above:

1) There is a drug trafficking scourge aimed at precious Image bearers who are worthy of our defense (Is. 1:17).

2) We should be persistent in our pursuit of peace (Ps. 34:14).

3) We should be in prayer for the authorities tasked with balancing these priorities (1 Tim. 2:1-2; Rom. 13:1-7).

U.S.

Meeting at Mar-a-Lago

U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met at Mar-a-Lago Monday and addressed the media in a joint press conference. Much of the discussion centered on President Trump’s insistence that Hamas and Israel begin implementing Phase Two of the recently agreed-to peace plan. Phase One centered on a ceasefire and hostage releases but Phase Two is slated to include the disarmament of Hamas alongside Israel’s withdraw from Gaza. As has long been the case for the Middle East, these deliberations raise additional considerations, including the posture of both Iran and Syria.

Analysis and eternal perspective: First, praise God the peace is largely holding. You should have clear eyes about the fragile and temporary nature of the current peace, but for now, it holds and those on all sides of the conflict have at least some reprieve.

That said, the larger millennia-old strife wages on. As we have regularly revisited here at The Equipped, the Jewish people are God’s first chosen people and have faced hatred and efforts of extermination throughout the course of history. The resulting conflicts have ranged widely in scope and have certainly included a number of additional geopolitical factors overlayed onto them. But the bottom line is that we should not expect the current “peace” to be permanent. Yes, we should always persistently pursue peace (Ps. 34:14), but a true, full, and lasting realization of it will not be ours until heaven.

In the meantime, you should continue to pray for those on all sides who are subjected to suffering and violence.

The Beautiful

Something Old, Something New

As one year closes and another begins, there is beauty in both the unchanging God’s work of old and the new thing He is doing in you! Look back with gratitude on what He assigned you in 2025, even as some of it begins to fade. Look forward with anticipation into the new and beautiful thing He is doing in you! Happy New Year!

“See, I am doing a new thing!” (Is. 43:19).

“I am making everything new!” (Rev. 21:5).

Don’t forget to check out the broadcast version of The Equipped on Faith Radio or wherever you get your podcasts!