Concentration and tension of power is an absolute necessity for any
effort, no matter how poor may be the aims to which it is directed, and
what is needed for the successful prosecution of the lowest transient
successes will surely not be less indispensable in the highest forms of
life. If a poor runner for a wreath of parsley or of laurel cannot hope
to win the fading prize unless all his powers are strained to the
uttermost, the Christian athlete has still more certainly to run, so as
the racer has to do, 'that he may obtain.' Loose-flowing robes are
caught by every thorn by the way, and a soul which is not girded up is
sure to be hindered in its course. 'This one thing I do' is the secret
of all successful doing, and obedience to the command of Jesus, 'let
your loins be girded about,' is indispensable, if we would avoid
polluting contact with evil. His other command associated with it will
never be accomplished without it. The lamps will not be burning unless
the loins are girt. The men who scatter their loves and thoughts over a
wide space, and to whom the discipline which confines their energies
within definite channels is distasteful, are destined to be failures in
the struggle of life. It is better to have our lives running between
narrow banks, and so to have a scour in the stream, than to have them
spreading wide and shallow, with no driving force in all the useless
expanse. Such concentration and bracing of oneself up is needful, if any
of the rest of the great exhortations which follow are to be fulfilled.
It may be that Paul here has haunting his memory our Lord's words which
we have just quoted; and, in any case, he is in beautiful accord with
his brother Peter, who begins all the exhortations of his epistle with
the words, 'Wherefore, girding up the loins of your mind, be sober, and
set your minds perfectly upon the grace that is to be brought unto you
at the revelation of Jesus Christ.' Peter, indeed, is not thinking of
the soldier's belt, but he is, no doubt, remembering many a time when,
in the toils of the fishing-boat, he had to tighten his robes round his
waist to prepare for tugging at the oar, and he feels that such
concentration is needful if a Christian life is ever to be sober, and to
have its hope set perfectly on Christ and His grace.