Dealing wih Our Sleeves

Our sleeves are harmless, usually protective parts of our shirts, jackets, coats and the like. They are the part of a garment that wholly or partly covers a person's arm. If you could ask a million people if they considered their sleeves a problem, 99.9% of them would probably say no. Let’s take a look at some history of using our sleeves.  

Throughout much of history, human behavior has many times been connected to a sleeve in the formation of an idiom that describes that behavior. There’s a long list of such idioms, some of which I’ll share with you here.  It has been noted that a person’s behavior can indicate: 1) they have something up their sleeve 2) they have an ace up their sleeve 3)  they laugh up their sleeve 4) they roll up their sleeves 5) they wear their heart on their sleeve 6) and they are given advice not to stretch their arm any further than their sleeve will reach.

In these sayings it is suggested that your sleeve is the keeper of the following: some hidden or secret plan to use to your advantage when the time is right; a way to cheat at cards or have a last resort answer to a situation; to laugh secretly or quietly to oneself; to get ready to work or take on a task; to display one’s feelings openly; and not to spend more money than you have.

Did you ever think your sleeves could have such an impact on your life? I’m surprised someone hasn’t started a new religion concerning the meaningful part sleeves play in our lives; maybe the ‘First Church of the Sleeves’ or something like that. You may have noticed in recent years that it is appropriate to cough or sneeze in public by doing so into your sleeve at the inside of your elbow.

These idioms reflect the good and the bad of our nature as children of God. They represent our way of needing to be in control, to hide things, to set out on a task, to share our emotions and to be conservative in matters of money. God knows all about the good and the bad of our sleeves. He’s been trying to communicate with us since He created us about how we live our lives.

There is an expression similar to our much used expression, "roll up your sleeves." It comes from the ancients who wore robes, but needed to pull them above their knees and tuck them in their belt (girdle) to have freedom of movement. Thus "gird up your loins" means to pull up your robe and tuck it into your belt for action.

In 1 Peter 1:13 it says, ^“Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

In The Message, the Bible in Contemporary Language, it gives us the same chapter and verse from 1 Peter as, “So roll up your sleeves, put your mind in gear, be totally ready to receive the gift that’s coming when Jesus arrives. Don’t lazily slip back into those old grooves of evil, doing just what you feel like doing.”

We humans have come up with many ways of describing what we do in life as it relates to our clothing. They describe good and bad things. As we seek to live our lives according to God’s Will, we certainly need to “roll up our sleeves” and get to work. The similar expression of “girding up our loins” is found in many places in Holy Scripture. God knows that we have to prepare and use our minds in a very proactive way in order to follow His teachings in Holy Scripture and His guidance through His Holy Spirit. Thanks be to God.