The enemy of our soul has laid before us booby traps of deception. These spiritual booby traps appeal to our pride and naivety. Pride leads us into a place of vulnerability and then our naivety has us open the door to a well-planned attack that can take us out because we ventured into these scenarios without humility and discerning patience.

When I was a young cop, I was working the midnight shift as a rookie.  My training officer and I received a call about a domestic dispute.  These calls carry the potential for violence because people release a lifetime of pain in a single, unscripted moment. Responding police officers are the first to encounter these raw emotions. 

When we arrived at the house it was dark and quiet.  All my internal alarms were going off.  There were no sounds of a dispute and no sign of life coming from within the house. It didn’t feel right.  That night, I was the one assigned to open the door.

At that moment, I had a strong impression that I was to walk around the entire house first before I answered the front door.  I am glad I followed my instinct.  As my flashlight beam surveyed the interior of the living room, I saw that a shotgun had been set up on top of a table pointing at the front door. Attached to the trigger was an elaborate string system in place that was attached to the doorknob.  Once the front door was opened the string would pull the trigger and send me into eternity.

The current spiritual landscape is filled with booby traps that have been set up on personal, national, and global levels. Before we respond prematurely to an alarm based on limited evidence and understanding, no matter how convincing, we need to pause and look around. Under the direction of the Holy Spirit, not our assumptions, we will be able to see what we are about to walk into. We cannot believe the assumptions presented to us on social media as something we can bet our lives on to keep us safe. Secondhand testimony about a person or a situation, commonly known as gossip, is also part of these booby traps.

Nothing is as it seems. Only in a Spirit-led pause, will we be led to the truth where we will discover the traps that have been set to take us out.  Follow the leading of the Spirit. It is the only safe course of action.