Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Ephesians 5:15-16

            When I was in middle school, waaay back in the day, growing up in India, I was fascinated by birds and worked on a school project with pictures and a short write-up on each.  One of the things that I remember from that project was that the crow is one of the most intelligent of all birds.  I was surprised by that since they were, in my young opinion, just very noisy pesky birds that would fly around our home and flock in the trees.  One day, home on vacation, I was out with our pellet gun doing some target practice.  On that particular day, up in one of our large mango trees, was a huge flock of crows (apparently called a ‘murder’ of crows).  I thought that perhaps I could scare them off if I shot at them.  I was fascinated as I pointed my BB gun up towards the tree, as the whole flock, with much noisy cawing, took off, even before I had a chance to shoot.   A little while later they were back, and even more stealthily and quietly, trying to be as inconspicuous as I could, I raised by BB gun, and halfway up, off they flew again.  How did they know?  I had never shot one.  Then my school project came back to mind and I realized, though they didn’t know what a gun was or what a BB could do to them, something was amiss, and in their wisdom, they escaped.

            In much the same way, we have an enemy who contrives to do us harm. Scripture tells us that he is like a prowling lion (very quiet, sneaky, stealthy but with deadly intent) looking for someone to devour.  He does not come to us with obvious sounds of danger.  He comes to us with tempting invitations to sin.

            We don’t need to investigate and understand everything about sin, but we must know that the tempter does not have our well-being in mind.  And like the crow, if we learn to identify the small indicators leading to sin, we will be able to survive with God’s help, and to call out a warning cry to others to warn them as well.  The best way to know what the indicators are, is to consistently be in God’s Word.  His truth remains the same no matter how much our world changes around us.  Let us be alert, awake, and vigilante and let us be praying, asking the Holy Spirit to open our eyes.