Who is watching You?
My family and I just came back from one of those indoor water park resorts. We had a great time together and did plenty of swimming.
These types of places are filled with people, pools and lifeguards.
There are lifeguards everywhere you turn whether you go on a water slide or wade in the wave pool. They do an excellent job of whistling people away from unacceptable behavior and unknown dangers. Their job is to make sure you are safe and don’t do anything stupid to hurt yourself.
One thing I noticed with my kids is that they would look to the lifeguard every time the whistle blew. A few times it was for them, like when they were doing handstands on the bottom of the pool. Most of the time it was for someone else that was getting to close to the edge or to close to the buoys where the wave machine works.
The lifeguards were watching everyone swim and would not let you get away with breaking a pool rule. My kids would do something and then look up to the lifeguard to see whether it was ok to do it. Once they found out that handstands were not allowed they didn’t try to do them again. They love handstands, but the lifeguards were always watching and they did not want to get busted.
When we are tempted to look at pornography, where is the lifeguard ready to blow the whistle on us? Believe it or not, there are lifeguards to keep us from sinning. One of them is called our conscience. Right before you click on that button to look at pornography, your conscience tells you to stop.
Another very similar lifeguard is the Holy Spirit which will do the same thing and urge you to run. Hopefully you can still hear your conscience or the Holy Spirit as they blow the whistle and tell you to stop. If you cannot hear them anymore, you have crushed these warnings long enough that you can’t hear them! You are ignoring them and need to slow yourself down to recognize them again. Remember that the eyes of The Lord are everywhere and while you think no one else can see you, He can!
Other lifeguards are the ones that we set up for ourselves. Internet filtering programs such as Covenant Eyes or X3 watch will serve as a lifeguard when you get tempted. There is also a program that will text your accountability partner when you start hitting websites that suggest you are ready to fail.
Some other practical lifeguards are locking out certain cable channels, keeping your computer in a public place, not allowing or getting yourself out of perfect storm situations, and calling your accountability partner to share your temptations with them.
Don’t allow yourself to even come close to drowning in pornography. You must heed the natural and supernatural lifeguards in your life. Don’t forget to set up some other practical lifeguards in your life as well. When you do these, it will be much harder to harm yourself and fall prey to the satan and his schemes.
