I’m down in south Florida today speaking at the Florida Tax Watch’s, (Smart Justice), Spring Meeting. It’s a beautiful setting here in Naples and the sugary white beaches beckon all who visit this area to stroll down them. The beaches also happen to be the nesting grounds for endangered green sea turtles. They dig holes in the sandy beaches and lay their eggs.
The young turtles hatch out at night and then crawl into the ocean, or at least they are supposed to. Visitors at the hotels are encouraged to shut their drapes by 9:00 p.m. at night so the light from their rooms doesn’t trick the young turtles into going the wrong way towards those lights, (away from the ocean instead of into it). If they don’t make it into the ocean they will die.
After the Tax Watch Board meeting tomorrow I will immediately go to a meeting with a criminal who just got arrested for a major drug bust in this area. An evangelist friend of mine, (who happened to know that I was in the area), called and asked if I would accompany him to meet with this guy and give him the old “one–two” and try to lead him to the Lord.
It will be quite the contrast meeting with some of the finest and successful people in all of Florida who sit on the Florida Tax Watch Board and then immediately go meet with this guy who is facing serious time in prison. Where did they go right and this guy go wrong?
I thought of the sea turtles laying their eggs near the bright lights of the hotels on the beach. These little baby turtles hatch out and can get confused as to which direction to go. Without their parents around to guide them, they could end up dead or in serious trouble. Unfortunately for the turtles their parents are missing in action at this critical juncture of their young lives and don’t lead them to safety.
In life we can similarly be drawn to the wrong things. We see the bright lights of the nightclubs, the flash and the cash, the drugs, alcohol, sex, etc. and they entice us.
We aren’t turtles and our parents don’t have to leave us on a deserted beach. God has designed things whereby we can offer Godly instruction to our children. We should do so!
Alas, it is a sad fact that about 80% of the children of those who are incarcerated end up in prison themselves. How can this cycle ever be broken when parents are missing in action? It is a sickening problem and one for which groups like Smart Justice are striving to find answers. Praise God for them.
Counsel your kids to go towards the bright shining light of Jesus Christ and teach them to shun those tempting lights that lead to death and sadness emanated by that old angel of light named satan who was cast out of heaven, but now controls this world that we live in including some who stand in the pulpit. Pray to God that his reign of terror will last only for a little while longer until he will be cast down to hell and sanity restored to this chaotic world.
2 Cor. 11:13
For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.