Unguarded = At Risk
Jesus said there’d be weeks like this… in Matthew 13:24-28, He begins a story about a farmer who planted good seed then found his field full of weeds. Granted, the idea of computer systems with world-wide connections was known only to Him — His audience was many centuries away from such ideas. But the principle remains — an unguarded field is vulnerable to stray weeds and malicious neighbors.
Overnight, we received a message that our account was suspended and all websites were down. Even worse was the garish sign like an old fashioned quarantine poster: Account Suspended for Malware. Nobody wants that on their front door for very long at all, certainly not a ministry seeking to bring Jesus to children and their families.
Unlike the farmer in Jesus’ story, and ultimately the Lord Himself, we spent a few days pulling every weed we could find. Thanks to technology, we had a list of files to work through. Last night, we got a clean bill of health from the hosting service and quickly set up firewalls.
Consider this your public service announcement — it is necessary to have firewalls around websites, because in a globally connected field, everyone has malicious neighbors.
But the principle goes farther than that… it’s important to have boundaries in place in the personal and spiritual lives of ourselves and our children. Deuteronomy 4, 6, and 11 and Proverbs 4 express the importance of learning, protecting, and teaching God’s wisdom from generation to generation. Only by a solid foundation in scripture and diligent care to rely on what God has recorded and preserved can we hope to keep destructive ideas and doctrines away from the lives He has given us to tend to.
In Matthew 7:15 and 10:16, as well as Ephesians 4:14 and several more scriptures, we are warned to be on guard against dangerous influences often disguised as harmless or even helpful. This doesn’t mean cloistering away in a cellar or tower, though some generations have tried that (and it bred disaster for the next generations). It means knowing the Truth, both scripture and the Word Himself (Jesus), so well and so comfortably that anything different is garishly obvious and distasteful.
This is no small task for any person or parent, but we have God’s guarantee that as we seek Him, we will find Him, and He will give the wisdom, strength, and security we need. Silent Blessings also seeks to come alongside parents, making resources available to teach those truths and build those walls in the hearts and minds of their children, especially the deaf and hard-of-hearing.
In a world of malicious neighbors, it’s good to have faithful friends, consider us yours.