In the world but not of the world

This morning I got off to a late start as my girls really wanted to have Christmas Adam (sleeping out on the floor around the Christmas tree the night preceding Christmas Eve) This caused me to need to keep children quite in the living room to avoid them waking others and especially not their mom who would be a grumpy bear and make the Holidays miserable should she not get her sleep. It also meant I couldn't jump right into listening to scriptures and unloading the dishwasher as this would surely wake people up. 

So when I did get around to things, I listened to the Book of Mormon while unloading the dishwasher. I was listening to how Moroni had the cities prepared with banks of earth and walls and towers erected around the cities to defend them. When the Amalackiahites came to attack the city Ammonihah they were disappointed with the fortifications and decided to move on to the city of Noah. They expected Noah to be an easy target as it had previously been known to be a weak part of the land (keep in mind that many of the Amalackiahites were defectors from the Nephites and had inside knowledge into Nephite affairs prior to Moroni's instructions to fortify) and the leaders swore an oath in front of their men that they would take the City of Noah. Yet when they found it even better fortified than Ammonihah and Lehi in charge of the armies there they were again disappointed and feared Lehi.

With that background in place for what was going on, the thought that came to me this today was that the manner of fortification and defense of the city was described as being so high that the stones and arrows of their enemies could have no effect on them and the only means the enemy had to engage was via the place of entrance set up with no good retreat options and leaving the enemy exposed. I saw this as an interesting metaphor for living in the world but not of the world as the Nephites were not locked away in a bomb shelter completely cut off from the enemy, rather they were set up were their weapons could take the greatest effect with minimal risk from the enemy.

A separate thought was also the idea of the Lord making weak things become strong. The Lamanites led by the Amalackiahites thought they were coming up on the weakest areas to terrorize the Nephites and found themselves instead confronted with greater power than they had previously encountered anywhere.

I'd love to hear what ways you can think of to put these thoughts into action. How can we fortify ourselves and our families to live in the world but not be overtaken by the world? How can we prepare ourselves such that we allow the Lord to make our weakness strength?