A few months after our family had moved to a rural area of central Texas, I thought all the snakes must have packed up and gone away. People living nearby said they hadn't seen a snake in a long time, and that was just fine with me.

One afternoon, though, I opened the door of the toolshed and saw a poisonous copperhead coiled in the corner. I called my wife and daughter to point out our need for alertness, then I killed the snake with a hoe.

That toolshed encounter with a copperhead served as a valuable wake-up call. I had become careless, mistakenly believing that an age-old threat had disappeared.

The Bible tells us to be alert to the presence of our spiritual enemy, the devil. "Be sober, be vigilant," 1 Peter 5:8 reminds us, "because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour." As we move through each day, we must neither pretend that Satan doesn't exist, nor should we become paralyzed by fear of his presence. Knowing his destructive potential, we must depend on God's power to "resist him, steadfast in the faith" (v.9).

Be careful and alert! That's a wake-up call we need every morning.  — David C. McCasland