DON’T TAKE THE BAIT!!!

A word of caution by: Travis Hayes

(After the events of last week across our nation, plus the things going on in personal lives, I felt this was a good message – one that needed to be shared)

In the last couple of days, we have been bombarded with images and news of senseless and tragic events that challenge both our senses and our emotions. These types of tragedies stir up feelings of hurt, sorrow, confusion, fear, anger, offense, and even division.

That said, how we respond right now is critical to our soul’s wellbeing.

Allow me to offer some spiritual perspective on what we’re experiencing and why.

The recent events of school shootings, and the murders of Iryna Zarutska, and Charlie Kirk are no doubt heinous acts of evil and darkness. The enemy of our soul thrives on creating emotional distractions that brings about separation between us and God’s heart and creates division amongst God’s people. Now evil acts happen daily but why are we experiencing so many events of this magnitude at this time?

Well, we are coming up on Rosh Hashanah, an appointed time for God’s people to lock away with Him and reflect on the past year and how He has blessed us, delivered us, and loved on us.

It is also a time for self-examination where we take stock of our growth or our need for additional growth into the likeness of Christ. As followers of Christ, we must always stay focused on Him and rooted in Him and especially so during Holy days of remembrance and introspection.

When events such as the ones we are experiencing occur, they stir up all the emotions I mentioned previously and most of those emotions are not Godly in nature. They are meant to distract us from what God is calling us to. How can we come into Rosh Hashanah and remember God’s goodness over the last year when we’re swimming in a sea of offense, anger and fear? How can we measure our growth in Christ as we are actively shrinking back in fleshly emotions?

By no means am I trivializing the deaths of the victims. It is sad and by all means their passing should be mourned. But it’s imperative that we not take the bait of offense and anger as we approach God’s appointed Holy days. The enemy launches these horrific attacks in an attempt to bait us into division with people and separation from what God is calling us to. When we indulge in the emotional response of the flesh, we lose perspective of what’s eternally important.

I pray that we all mourn these losses appropriately and then turn it over to God. I pray that we all enter Rosh Hashanah free from nastiness and ready to embrace the goodness of what God HAS done, and the hopeful expectation of what He WILL do.

Don’t take the enemy’s bait. Stay locked in on Jesus

Travis Hayes

Wacniner@yahoo.com