I sat squished into a chair several sizes too small towering over the heads of several sandy haired children. They watched with big eyes and a fascinated disposition while a police officer in full uniform sang a song about safety. Holding up containers of varying sizes, He asked the children to identify the symbols that were the warning signs for danger. The big ‘x’ skulls were easy enough for the little ones to point out, chubby fingers waving in the air.

In the eyes of those children, that which was harmful and dangerous was easily seen in shades of black and white. But at what age of maturity do we begin to see a world shaded in grey?

Somehow we grow up to know that superheroes do not really exist, yet the superhero I-am-invincible- mentality is what we choose to keep as truth. The rules of which we learned to keep now flow themselves through a different filter and different set of eyes. There no longer exists a world of only two shades.

Perhaps it is because the enemy of our soul got very clever in his packaging. Everything that has the ability to distract, hurt, and harm us no longer shouts its warnings on the outside. On the outside sin appears attractive in order to grab our attention and feed our curiosity. And rarely is sin a complete nose dive but a slow rationing to our soul. Little by little we begin to crave its taste and grow accustomed to its effects.

It’s not until we’re in too deep, swallowed too much, ingested far more than our soul could handle, that we realize the poison we’ve been given.

In the modern day translated bible called The Message, author Eugene Peterson put it best when translating a scripture from the book of Proverbs:

The Fear-of-God is a spring of living water so you won’t go off drinking from poisoned wells.
Proverbs 14:27

The Fear of God is not us being afraid of the Lord with shoulders down feeling chastised and guilty, but rather a healthy position of awe and respect for our very Creator and Heavenly Father. And the one thing that seems to escape us as we pass from childhood into adulthood are the boundaries that set us up for failure or success. Children have a keen ability to see the world for what it is in all its rawness. It is our responsibility to teach them that which is dangerous and harmful.

And one of the greatest truths we must never forget is that the world is still a classroom and the Holy Spirit our skilled teacher. Though we are no longer little children in stature, we are God’s children on earth. The greater our attention to His teaching in this classroom, the greater our ability to identify the warning signs of danger, and the less grey and murky our filter will be.

Father, help me to see the world through your eyes as a child of God and not the tainted eyes of sin. May your Spirit show me all that I need to learn so I may be able to identify the poisons that tempt me. In Jesus name, amen.