Staying Alert!

I love the outdoors and God has blessed me with a house that backs up to a wooded area. I usually take a walk in the woods every morning. I have cleared a lot of trails in the woods, and usually keep them raked of rustling leaves so I can walk silently and observe all the creatures that God has created. If you spend any time in the outdoors, you have probably heard the animals making all types of noises. Almost all types of animals have some way of communicating with each other. As I was walking in the woods this morning, I detected an angry chattering from a squirrel. The closer I got, the more squirrels joined in the fussing. They were clearly very disturbed by something. Sometimes you hear two squirrels chasing each other and barking, but this was clearly more than two squirrels and they were very upset. I slowed my walk and quietly continued down the winding trail. I paused as I stepped around a corner, and saw what the squirrels were upset about. Sitting in the middle of the trail, and staring up at a bunch of squirrels was a very disgusted fox! Fortunately for the squirrels, at least one of them was alert and saw the hungry fox before he could pounce on one of them. By the time I arrived every animal within 100 yards was alerted to the hungry fox. All the squirrels lived to eat again the next day! The fox went off hungry, his plans for a tasty meal spoiled by an alert squirrel!

  The Bible talks about the “little foxes that spoil the vines.” Foxes are one of the smaller predators in the outdoors, but they can still cause a lot of havoc. Just as the small foxes cause havoc for the wildlife, there are many small things that can spoil the “vines of our lives.” We need to be alert and vigilant for the “foxes” that come after us. Evil temptations can overtake us if we are not careful. In I Thessalonians 5 Paul talks about the “end times” and warns us to “watch and be sober”.

At times our fellow Christians get so busy that they may not see or hear the “fox” coming. As Christians we need to also watch out for our fellow Christians, just as the first squirrel that spied the fox and warned the other squirrels. Ezekiel 33 talks about the “watchman” whose job is to warn the people of danger and reminds the watchman that he will be held accountable if he see “danger” and fails to warn the people. Live for God and stay alert to the dangers in your spiritual life!

Landmarks

    I received a lot of lessons from my dad while hunting in the great outdoors. When I was younger we didn't have all the modern GPS navigation aids. More than once, while in the outdoors, I found myself walking in circles and ending up where I started. This behavior causes quite a disturbing feeling. Dad taught me to navigate by using existing landmarks, pointing out various unique trees and terrain along the trail. Seeing one of these landmarks was a reassuring feeing when I was uncertain if I was still going the right direction. One particular area we hunted in was a very large and heavily wooded area, with no fences and few unique landmarks. Fortunately, this area was close to a road with an old wooden bridge. Cars traveling over this bridge made a distinctive noise. My dad taught me this simple lesson for navigating back home when lost in this area: "Just stop and wait until you hear a car going over the old wooden bridge, then turn until the bridge is on your left and walk straight forward." I sometimes had to wait a while for the next car to cross over the bridge, but the technique worked every time!

    To successfully navigate through our complex spiritual existence, we need to set up or identify some “landmarks” in our lives. Seeing these familiar landmarks assures us that we are still on the correct spiritual path. The Bible points out many of these “landmarks” that we should have established in our lives, such as daily prayer, fasting, witnessing, and regular reading of the Word. Losing sight of one of these “landmarks” helps us realize that we are straying off our spiritual path and need to take action to get back on track. One personal “landmark” that I set in my life at an early age was regarding church attendance. If I started questioning in my mind whether or not I should go to church, that was an immediate sign to me that I was backsliding and needed some immediate attention to get back on track.

    If we don’t have enough of the spiritual landmarks in our lives, we can get lost and not know what path to take to get back on track. Even when we have the landmarks, we can still stray off the path and get lost. It is usually frightening and disturbing when we come to the realization that we have a problem in our life, and we have no idea what to do to fix the problem. When this happens while driving a car, we usually stop the car, get out and ask someone where we are and how to get to our destination. When this happens on the spiritual side, we need to pause and go to someone for direction, or go directly to God for help. In Matthew 17:16 the disciples could not heal a certain man. They then came to Jesus and asked why, and Jesus told them that some challenges take much prayer and fasting to see success. Make sure you setup and follow the landmarks in your life, to keep you on the correct path!