Wolves in Wolves' Clothing

Since it is Halloween, a day of costumes, I thought it would be fitting to share this journal entry I wrote on 04.22.12.

We were in line at MacDonald's, and a big purple character [Grimace] came past in costume.  I pointed it out saying "Oh!  Look!  There's a purple guy!", thinking it would be fun.  But Malachi's eyes grew wide in horror.  When the character walked silently by and touched Malachi's arm, he screamed in torture.

Oh my tender boy!  His framework has no room for scary blob characters in costume.  It was his first time to encounter anything like the Grimace.  As adults we just register that there is a nice guy inside the costume and he's dressing up for fun, but for him it was a wolf in wolves' clothing.

"Watch out for false prophets.  They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves."  Matthew 7.15

To make me feel even worse, as I was comforting him and holding his hands as he sat in the stroller, the robber character then appeared from the back and walked right past us.  The look on Malachi's face was terror as if looking at a real lion or seeing a demon.  He shrieked a scream of pure fear and asked me to hold him.  I feel so bad!

What kind of character is the robber anyway!?  A huge scary-looking guy is supposed to make little kids giggle?  Malachi could see it for what it really was to innocent eyes--something that doesn't belong in our world as usual.

"Therefore Jesus said again, 'I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep.  All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them."  John 10. 7-8

Other people have reprogrammed their minds to include foreign creatures like that, but 2 year olds know they don't belong.

"When [the shepherd] has brought out all of his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.  But they will never follow a stranger; in fact they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger's voice."  John 10.4-5

We were talking about the soul in book club Thursday [Renovation of the Heart by Willard], and how our world now as we know it is not "normal" but we've come to accept it as though it is.  Homosexuals on TV or walking around, sex displayed on public TV, violence, killings, shootings on the normal nightly "news".

It's "usual" but not "normal".  It's our world distorted by sin and twisted to where we are supposed to think it's all fun and parties when really it is a scary character in costume that doesn't belong.

Lord, what scary things do I see that are evil to you, too sinful to let innocent eyes see, that I have reprogrammed my mind to think it acceptable and fun?  What do I try to laugh and smile at because I'm "supposed to" (for the "birthday party', or to "fit in"), when really I should scream in horror at it and be shocked at it?

What things to you are wolves in wolves' clothing when we think it is a cute cuddly sheep?

"Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.  It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness."  2 Corinthians 11.14-15