Today, as I was walking to my daughter’s school to pick her up, I glanced to my right at the top of my street and noticed that there were about a dozen cop cars. I asked a bystander what was going on, and he didn’t know, but said that guns were drawn. I immediately worried about getting my daughter from school even though it was in the opposite direction. I soon found out that her school was on lock-down. As I walked to school, I just knew that everything was going to be fine. I said a little prayer we would get to and from school safely, and we did. It seems that whatever drama was going on in the neighborhood was not going to impact us in any way.
I started thinking about the idea of a lock-down in our own homes. Schools use it as a way to safe-guard our children when there is a dangerous situation. Many children walk home from this neighborhood elementary school, and they just couldn’t take the risk in letting the kids out alone. The idea behind a lock-down is that we keep the good (the children) in, and keep the bad out. Are we doing the same in our own homes?
We live in a world where danger literally lurks around every corner. I was safely in my house with two boys oblivious to the commotion going on just 2 blocks from my home. I still am unsure what the situation was, but I don’t like the idea of anything dangerous going on. But, the truth is, that there is danger all around us, no matter how safe we think our neighborhood might be.
Our children have other dangers too besides just the “bad guys”. They have evil influences. And, while our homes are not perfect in keeping all the bad out, we can put our homes on a spiritual sort of lock down. We can lock out the bad, and keep in the good. We can protect them from bad language, bad books, bad TV. We can limit the time they get alone with a computer. We can talk to them about situations that occur beyond our own homes and comfort and reassure them. Our houses should be on a spiritual lock down from the influences of the adversary 24/7.
Lock-downs aren’t perfect. I noticed that there were some slip ups at the school before teachers understood what was going on. A few students did slip through the cracks and made it outside alone. I’m assuming that all ended well. But, it is the same in our personal homes too. We are not going to have a perfect lock down. I wish we could ensure that our children would be safe from all evil influences, but sometimes, they aren’t. And, sometimes the evil influence is sitting right in our living room. We think that all is well, but in reality, they are maybe absorbing something from the TV program you are watching, picking up on bad lyrics in a song, or maybe they are really into video games that aren’t helping them reach their full potential. Whatever the case may be, the true bad guy will find a way to sneak in. So, make sure that your spiritual lock down in your home is working. And, all entrances are secure.
*Photo courtesy of Morguefile.com