Staying Out of Trouble

Stay out of trouble

First, stay away from sin. Don’t go looking for Satan just to show that you can withstand his wiles. We aren’t supposed to go looking for trouble, jumping off of spiritual cliffs and expecting angels to rescue us. What I recommend is the opposite: Draw boundaries for yourself that keep you away from the danger.

By boundaries, I do not mean that you see how close you can get to sin without actually going over the line. That is stupid, for the simple reason that our strength of resistance varies from time to time. A boundary that may be safe for us one day may be hazardous to us the next, depending on our emotional state. So a boundary, if it’s going to work, has to be set for our weakest moment, not our strongest.

God doesn’t tell us where to put our boundaries, and we all may need slightly different levels of strictness with ourselves. For example, a photo that is sexually suggestive for one person may not even catch the eye of another. Consequently, people have differing ideas of what sort of pictures to avoid. People with a high tolerance should not look down on those with low tolerance—everyone must judge the risk for themselves.

A person with high tolerance should not “push” the boundaries of the other, saying it’s OK, for that might cause the person to sin. The person with high tolerance should also remember that it is dangerous to overestimate one’s strength. Many aspects of society are designed to tempt, so don’t forget that you are human.

Many of us struggle with temptation in the form of calories. Here, we can break our boundaries every now and then and still recover. Many people have trouble with alcohol, and experience has shown that the safest boundary for most is “absolutely none.” The potential danger is high; the benefits are low; it is simply not worth the risk.

Sexual temptations can also be dangerous, because the consequences of sexual sins are severe. We can’t just “recover” a relationship shattered by infidelity. Here, we must set boundaries well away from the danger zone, just to make sure that nothing happens even in our weakest moments.

For example, our pastors have been given a boundary: They cannot counsel a woman alone. Although the chances of improprieties may be slim, the devastating consequences make the risk too great to allow private counseling. And for similar reasons, youth ministry workers are not to be alone with a child. Safety is too important to leave to good intentions and assumptions.

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