Erosion
Erosion is such a fascinating thing. Something as simple as the dripping of water or a breeze over time can wear away at harden rock and even begin to shape the landscape over time. What was once a trickle can become a river and what once was a dam is now a waterfall.
I live in Southwest Louisiana where the conversation of coastal erosion is something that is taken very seriously. Just the constant breaking of the waves along our coast is eating away at our state but when you add in major storms, well it takes a beating at times. There are organizations, both government and private alike, that focus on combating the erosion problem at our coast. They build walls and other devices to try and help but it's a significant problem to say the least.
Proverbs 4:23 says, "Above all else, guard your heart for everything you do flows from it." (NIV)
I love this verse! God never says follow your heart but to guard your heart. Stand watch over it. Not to wall it in and keep everything from it but to be very mindful of the things that are coming against it.
I've been in student ministry almost fifteen years now and over that time the conversations that students come to me with have shifted. I've navigated a lot more conversations in regards to sexuality and identity over the past five years than probably the entire ten years prior. It got me thinking, why?
Well, the answer is erosion. I truly believe that there is an outright and full on assault against our churches, families, and especially our kids but the methods our enemy uses do not look like a full frontal attack along with a battering ram, they look more like erosion. It's usually simple things that we almost don't bat an eye at. A commercial, a word, a good beat, an ad, you see where this is going.
I have two children, a son and a daughter, and both are preteens. Like most preteens and younger teens these days, they are begging for phones. They both have tablets that have a lot of parental strings attached and when the day comes that they get phones the same will be true. When they ask why we have these parameters they often times question our trust of them. Our response has always been it's not that we don't trust them and what they're trying to get to but that there is a very real enemy that is trying to get to them. Just like erosion, it happens slowly and over time. Clicking on this ad leads to that site and that video curiously leads down another seemingly innocent path then before you realize it, your heart, the very fiber of who you are has been eroded away and you find yourself someplace you never intended or wanted to be.
To protect our children, ourselves, our families we put erosion prevention in place. We guard our hearts knowing that our very life, all we are, comes from it. Guardrails are always set before the edge of the bridge not beyond it. We put people in our lives that lovingly guide and protect us.
In places where some erosion has occurred, no-one makes it through life without scars, we look to God to restore those places, fill in those cracks, and get those broken pieces put back together.
Where are some places you're needing God to push back some erosion? What people do you have in your life to help lovingly guide and protect you? No matter what stage of life you find yourself in, put some guardrails in your life, combat the erosion occurring, and use wisdom knowing there's a very real enemy that has been around a long time. He's looking to slowly and methodically look to do all he can to steal from you, kill, and destroy you and everything you are. Make no doubt it's an all out attack but it's clandestine warfare.
Photo by Nicolas Tissot on Unsplash