Defense in Depth

I took a course on computer security last May. Lots of review. Some new concepts. Some stuff repackaged under a new name. Language is fascinating that way. If you have some idea you want people to remember, an alliterative phrase is a means to that end. A very prominent example from this course was "Defense in Depth." Isn't that catchy? It's a simple, and ideally speaking, pervasive, way of looking at computer security. It means you don't depend on only one way to keep your computers secure. Anti-virus software protects against one kind of attack. Firewalls protect against other kinds of attacks. Good passwords protect against other kinds of attack. Building security protects against yet another attack vector. Defense in Depth means you do your level best in each area. (Do All the Things)

I thought of it the other day when I was praying with a friend of mine. He was seeing a negative pattern developing in his life and at some level he wasn't just needing to help himself (i.e. to simply stop it) -- he also needed help, and in fact he was planning to go to counselling about the problem. But as it turned out, another dimension of help was also needed. As we prayed we discerned that there was a demon involved. We invited Jesus to deal with the demon and He did. Gone. Freedom. Hurrah! But my friend still planned to go to counselling, and furthermore we talked through some thought-based strategies to avoid the negative pattern in the future. Defense in Depth.

It came up again at a prayer meeting last Saturday. The raison d'etre of the meeting is essentially to pray for revival in our church. but typically at the end people bring up personal needs as time allows. Someone had a back problem and when we prayed, and, I might add, for only a short time, the pain went away. (When healings are that easy, it says to me that God is on the move.) But that wasn't the end of it. One of the group praying brought forth some counsel for our friend in the area of nutrition. Defense in Depth.

Point is, there's no one magic bullet. Jesus heals a man, and tells him to stop sinning to keep from further injury. He also talks about demons being driven out but coming back later to see if there is anything hindering a re-occupation. Life is a complex thing. Build on a good foundation in every respect. Defense in Depth.