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

On this particular call, we arrived at the house and it was dark and quiet.  All my internal alarms went on high alert.  Nothing felt right.  At that moment, I had a strong impression of walking around the entire house 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 a shotgun set up on a table pointing at the front
door with an elaborate string system in place that was attached to the doorknob.  Once the front door opened the string would have pulled the trigger and sent me into eternity.

Over the years, I have faced similar booby traps hundreds of times. These traps were not set up with
shotguns aimed to kill me. They were traps set to destroy me spiritually – the worst kind of death.  I have discovered that each of these spiritual traps fires when the trigger of pride is pulled. 

After many years of walking with God, I have come to realize we need to do a walk around for each
challenging situation we face to make sure that a booby trap of pride is not set waiting for us to open the door to its death and destruction. The pause that takes place in this walk around can save our lives and preserve our integrity.

On the night of that domestic violence call, I eventually crawled through the window and disabled the booby trap. I then opened the front door for my partner to enter the house.  It is a wonderful feeling
knowing that a booby trap was been disabled and no longer had the power to bring harm.