"I knew you would not want me to go to there because I would be tempted."

Last Monday, we had a bit of a scare.  William had asked to go down to a friend's house when he first went outside.  He played down there for a while and then he began to go back and forth from playing elsewhere to playing out in front of our house.  When it came time to come inside to clean up, however, William was not to be found.  Rich had looked at the house that William had asked to go to and then called for him up and down the street while looking into the courtyards as he walked.  He checked next door which is a typical hang out for William as well.  Not finding him around here, Rich went over to another house a couple of blocks away.  Still not finding him, I texted our teammates to pray quickly that we would find him.  Rich went back to the beginning looked inside one of the houses where he had just looked at the courtyard.  Low and behold, William was found sitting inside the house watching cartoons on the television with the father of the family, despite no kids being around.  Needless to say we were thrilled to have him found and did have a talk about him needing to let us know where he was going if he changed from where he had already told us.  We also bought him a watch with an alarm, so that he would know what time to come home.

That night however as we talked about where he had been and the fact that he needed to let us know when he changed houses.  He said, "I knew you would not want me to go there because I would be tempted."  He had gone to that house before and just sat watching television.  When we send them outside to play, it is because they have had enough to watch and need to go play actively.  I pointed out that I would rather know where he was going and began to address that he obviously knew he should not go there if he did not want to tell me for that reason.

How often do we do that though?  We do not really want to talk to God about where we are going because we may get an answer that we do not want.  It may or may not necessarily be a temptation but not be exactly where the Lord wants us to be spending our time.  Maybe it is even a good place but it is not the best.  Maybe it is a place that is comfortable and the Lord wants to push us out of our comfort zone.  Maybe it is a place where we will be tempted and we do not want to run from the temptation.  Maybe we can say we can handle the temptation, but why do we test ourselves and then get mad at ourselves when we find ourselves giving into the temptation.  We would be wise to stay away from the place where we know we would be tempted.  How about you?  Are you talking to the Father about where you are going?