Are you aware of the dangers around you? Can you spot spiritual danger when it lurks in your life? The amount of information we collect about any given circumstance or thing is dependent on our alertness. Being aware of what is going on around us is a phenomenal task with the multitude of distractions we are continually confronted with.
We are living in an age where we live “tuned out” much of the time and “tuned into” a screen or earphones…
“Be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion,
walks about, seeking whom he may devour”. I Pet. 5: 8
What happens if we fail to maintain vigilance or if our children are not alert to our instructions? Pro. 1: 8 Have you listened to the news lately? It is inconceivable the dangers we face from within and without! Why…if we are not careful… we could become paranoid…
Take a look at this picture…
Now... close your eyes.
What did you see? What kind of animal is pictured? How many colors did you see? What color is predominating? What color is the birds beak?
Which direction is the parrot looking? Was there a written text on the page? What was the background color of the picture? Green…Blue…?
How many did you get right?
How many of us would notice more IF
money had been offered for correct answers?
Concentrating on details that would otherwise be unobserved and taking note of them takes dedicated concentration! Keeping attentive takes remarkable effort!! We need to be aware of the events going on around us (and our children) so that the dangers they are facing, alert us to their need and we can correctly respond.
Recently, two cars were racing in front of me on our busy California freeway. They were both enraged, cutting in and out of traffic, racing dangerously, dodging one another, until one car hazardously cut in front of the other car…loosing control…
Needless to say, every car on the road went into heart pounding…“instant ALERT mode”! Pryor to this encounter, I was enjoying the ride, happily singing along with the car radio…oblivious to the world around me. I had let my guard down. I was not foreseeing possible dangers or the consequences that come from “sleeping at the wheel”. This is not to say a little music is bad, but maintaining my focus is imperative.
Learning to pay attention to the lessons God is using to teach us through the things we can see and trusting in that same God, who sees the things going on around us, (that we cannot see) is key to our being vigilant. Learning to foresee dangers and fully understand the consequences of our words, actions, attitudes and thoughts is a daily exercise that should continually demand our attention.
How are you doing at conquering distractions?
Be vigilant.
~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America. Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California. My passion is discipling and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights.
