One year during our family vacation to the Gulf Shores, my two daughters, Ariane and Tiffany, decided that we should take a Swamp Tour in Louisiana. So we drove to the swamps and took a swamp tour with about nine of my very young grandchildren. As we walked on the narrow boardwalk past huge alligators in the water, I kept saying to myself, this is a bad idea.
We reached the swamp boat and I noticed that the sides of the boat were not too much higher than the water. I felt again that this was a bad idea as we sat on the boat with sides low enough for a gator to jump up into the boat, in a swamp filled with alligators. Fear gripped me in a way I have never experienced before. The though!t of being eaten alive by a gator sent paralyzing fear throughout my entire body.
As the boat moved out into the narrow mouth of the swamp, an alligator appeared and started swimming straight toward us. I was hoping the gator man had a gun or something as I let him know that a gator was swimming straight at us. Shoot him, I screamed within myself, not wanting to scare my grandchildren.
Then gator man reached into a bag and instead of pulling out a pistol, he pulled out a marshmallow. A marshmallow? He then threw about four marshmallows at the gator to satisfy him. My son in law, Rashad, asked the gator man why was he throwing marshmallows at the gator and to my complete horror, gator man replied, "if I don't throw something out of this boat, then he's gonna come up in this boat and take what he want." I almost fainted when I heard that!
After saying that, three more gators appeared so gator man put the fan boat at full speed into open waters where it was safer. I realized that gator man studied this natural predator of man and understood their nature, size, eating habits and speed, but he also knew the speed of his boat.
Because he studied his enemy, he knew how to stay out of the way of danger and not become a victim to this dangerous predator. He used wisdom in feeding him and knew how not to become the gators lunch. He dominated his enemy by outwitting him. He also had the responsibility of keeping the people who trusted him safe. He gave us a wonderful tour as he taught us all about alligators and took us at different speeds on the water and as we encountered more alligators, we had no fear because we knew that our guide was skilled in his knowledge of gators.
We have a spiritual enemy who is just as dangerous as that gator. Our enemy desires to devour us as well and he has the upper hand on most people because we haven't studied his habits. He seeks to steal, kill and destroy us and he is doing a good job on many of us, because unlike gator man, we trust our enemy. We believe every lie that he speaks into our ears. Why do we let him get that close to us? Put your defenses up and give Satan no ground in your life.
We trust him because he comes at us through people that we know we should have nothing to do with, but we think that we can take fire in our bosom and not get burned. You ain't Superman, stop lying to yourself. You don't need x-ray vision, you need spiritual discernment. Stop flirting with silly men and women, thinking that you won't get burned. You're not fireproof either. Steer clear of trouble and walk in wisdom. If you are trying to live a sanctified life, why go to the Club to find "righteous" friends. Stop acting crazy!!! Learn from gator man; he stayed alive, taking tours into the bayou daily and coming out with good success because he knew his enemy and he did not trust them.
We are called to go into the enemy's camp and deliver people from darkness and to bring them out safely; not to become a statistic because we secretly love the darkness more than light. What you don't slay,will slay you.
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