Spiritual Early Warning Systems

UV 1225/10,000 Spiritual Early Warning Systems

For he is cast into a net by his own feet, and he walketh upon a snare.

Job 18 v 8
The enemy of our soul lays many traps or snares to capture our souls much like a bird hunter or a fowler lays nets to trap unsuspecting birds that fly into it. Some of the snares can evolve from our own words or thoughts or desires or actions. Jesus was so aware of this that He taught His disciples to pray, “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.” One of the seven components of the Lord’s prayer is to guard us from temptations, evils or snares. The implication is that one of our seven prayer priorities in life is to guard ourselves from being ensnared and to seek the Lord’s help in this regard.
The Word warns us that our desire for riches and quick riches can pierce our souls with many sorrows. Our loyalty should not turn on money or it can entrap us. Our own words and promises that are not meant sincerely can be a snare for us. Our desire for prominence, to be in the limelight or to be recognized can also be a trap for our souls. Our desire for pleasure of the sexual kind can ensnare our lives in an adulterous lifestyle. People who try to set up snares or traps for others like the evil Haman who conspired against the Jews and Mordecai will eventually be caught in it. Having a compact or agreement or association with people who are involved in wicked schemes can also ensnare us consciously or unwittingly. The enemy always looks for the chinks in our spiritual armour that he can easily penetrate – the pride of life, the lust of the eye and the lust of the flesh. Taking God at His Word and talking it out with Him in prayer are powerful ways to keep these chinks sealed and impenetrable. It will pre-empt our souls and our lives from being hit or overcome with a tsunami of worry, guilt, anguish, fear and regret.

Systematic, focussed and defensive prayer times are not a foe but an aid to spontaneous prayer. King David who prayed seven times a day would have divided his prayer times such that one of the sessions would have been to confess his own inner weaknesses and to ask the Lord for the grace or strength to overcome temptations and to withstand pressures. Remembering his own downward slide into temptation and the sin of adultery with Bathsheba, he would have asked the Lord for the wisdom to recognize temptation at an early stage and to move away from the scene of temptation. Each of us should set up our own such early warning systems to recognize a snare as soon as possible and to walk away from it rather than into it. The other six sessions of prayer based on the template of the Lord’s prayer is that we can daily acknowledge and draw nearer in our relationship with the Father, to seek His will, to ask for needs, to ask for forgiveness for ourselves and others, to worship our Lord and Redeemer, to seek His power, kingdom , righteousness and glory first in our lives above the desires of our own hearts.

Prateep V Philip