Stranger Danger
by Jason Arnold
As all parents have done, we were trying to teach our four-year-old son the concept of “stranger danger” so he knew what to do if he was approached by a stranger. We felt like we were making progress, so we thought a test was needed to gauge our success. One afternoon, while playing catch in the yard, I asked him what he would do if a stranger walked up and asked him to help him find his dog that had run away. He stopped, glove on hand, and looked at me for a few seconds. Pride swelled up as I knew all our training had worked, and he was about to give the correct answer, “No, I will not help you,” and run inside. All of those months of preparation, conversation and warnings were about to show through with this well-planned test. Our confidence in our ability as parents to teach him about strangers had worked! Until he finally answered.
Our son loves dogs. That’s why this was such a good test. After those few seconds of thinking about his answer, he proudly proclaimed that he would have to help because the man had lost his DOG. As I reminded him about the concept of stranger danger, he was perplexed and told me that someone trying to find a lost dog would not be a dangerous stranger. More teaching was obviously needed in this area.
That’s how the enemy of our souls works. He knows those soft areas of our hearts where he can get in easily, and then make us question what we know to be true. He still uses that same old line, “Did God REALLY say?” (Genesis 3:1) that he used to lead the first humans to sin in the Garden of Eden. We commit to studying God’s word, attending Bible study in groups, praying, fasting and other areas to help us “hide God’s word in our hearts so that we might not sin” (Psalm 119:11). But our “flesh is weak” (Mark 14:38). We know the schemes of the Devil all too well. Those things that easily entangle (Hebrews 12:1) and lead us to sin over and over will not cease this side of eternity. Our enemy will trap us with the same tricks. So what do we do? James 1:3 tells us that the “testing of our faith will produce perseverance” in the believer. In other words, we accept the test for what it really is; as a way to build our spiritual perseverance so that we can run the race that God has set before us. Thank God for the tests, repent of the sin and continue in the training. Oh! And don’t talk to strangers.
Author Bio
Jason is husband to Kim and father to Nolan and their yellow lab, Daisy. He gets his kicks watching baseball, talking about and working on cars, fishing and reading business articles and books. He was called to ministry out of the "real world" of finance in 2007. Since then, he's completed a master and doctorate degrees and hopes to never write another paper again. He has served as Executive Pastor of Inside-the-Walls Ministry since 2013.