Jesus, in His parable, says we must have our lamps lit and our loins girded, because only then will we be ready for the chance when it comes—and it may spring on us unannounced.
That is the purpose of school and work and lessons and exercises. Life is not an easy job.
If you have read "Tom Brown's Schooldays" (and I hope you have or will) you will find the author saying that "life is no fool's or sluggard's paradise, but a battlefield ordained from of old, where there are no spectators, and the youngest must take his stand, and the stakes are life and death."
If you go to a hockey match or a baseball game, you can sit in the grand-stand and look on; but there is no grand-stand in life, and no looking on. We are all in it, and, therefore, we need to be ready.
Now, being ready is just girding yourself—gathering yourself together so you can make an effort. And if you do not make an effort, you will leave behind no mark, any more than you do when you put your finger in a pail of water and pull it out again.
2. The puttee is to make us tight and strong and ready to march; but the belt is also to hang things on.
That is the worst of life—we have to carry a lot of burdens. Some of them, of course, we make for ourselves. We often tie things on to us by silly acts and sins. The best thing to do with them is not to have any, or get rid of them as soon as possible.
But there are real burdens that God sends. They are His gifts to us, and we need a place to carry them—duties and tasks and home calls and troubles and sorrows. Oh, there are a lot of things to do, and if you have no belt, where in the world are you going to hang them all?
- Now the Bible says a splendid girdle is "Truth."
A true girl and boy is well-knit, straight up and down, like a perpendicular line. You know where to find them. They will always win out. They have no sloppy one-sidedness that will tip them over. And they can carry a lot of things on their belt.