Like a Kid in a Candy Store
As a child, the most important moment to me was that at lunch time I could literally run off
of the sixth grade school grounds about a block and a half away, get to some neighborhood
entrepreneur’s makeshift garage door candy store, spend every cent I had for a pocketful of
candy, and rush back to the school in time to eat lunch. Good times—too good to resist! The
campus was wide open, no fences, and no security guards patrolling the perimeter. That
temptation of colorful sweetness in all shapes and sizes outweighed any thoughts I might have
had about what my principal or my parents would think. Oh, I suppose there were rules about
this, but I don’t remember them.
Frightening are these words through the pen of the apostle Peter in First Peter 5:8, “Be sober,
be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom
he may devour.” He is in the business, day and night, non-stop, of setting up candy stores too
tempting for many to ignore. Sadly, despite the overwhelming evidence of a loving God, with
His message of protection and peace, many souls will fall prey to the candy store deception—
the temporary satisfaction of the taste buds for the things of this world, rejecting God’s
gracious offer of a better way. Through Paul’s writing, God reports their dismal end. “And
for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they
all may be condemned who did not believe the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. (1
Thes 2:11-12)”
What strong delusion will He send? “Delusion,” from its original Greek form, is also
translated mental wandering. It does not need to be imagined. We see this process taking hold
of the lives of many around and among us. Our enemy has inundated our present existence
with deceptions and distractions. Those even of our own families have rejected the truth and
pursue the lie. The day will soon be upon us that God, in His patience and longsuffering, will
say, “It is enough.” In that day, their minds will be set to hopeless wandering, like a wideeyed and penniless child in a candy store, hoping for what they cannot have, and receiving
that which is eternally unbearable in its pain. May we choose wisely today to ask, seek, and
knock, to be filled again with His Holy Spirit, to be sober-minded and vigilant for ourselves
as we lovingly witness to the unsaved souls that we meet.
Robert Watkins
Copyright © 2016 Wildwood Calvary Chapel
Scripture taken from the New King James Version.
Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.