BE CAREFUL SO YOUR FREE TIME WON’T BE YOUR FREE FALL

During my National Youth Service, I was posted to a Local Government Secretariat. When I went to officially report at what we normally called my Place of Primary Assignment, I met with one or two of the officials. 

The Director of Personnel Management was a very warm woman. She said to me, “The Law, we would accept you here, but we have told them to stop sending us lawyers.” She smiled. She then added, “You have nothing to do here. You would have a lot of free time. We have a free house for you also but let me add that our girls here are very nice.” 

The combination for a young man’s fall was already perfect- free time, a free house and plenty of nice young girls. I knew I had to run. An idle mind and an unoccupied day is enough temptation to welcome the devil into one’s space. 

It is easier for the idle to fall. It is easier to be trapped when free time is left “free indeed.” The fall of King David that began a strange spiral in his family and kingdom began with free time. What do you do with your free time? 

Time unallocated has become a time that can be hijacked. A mind left unengaged can become a space for the enemy to occupy. 

Do you remember a chilling parable that Jesus shared about unoccupied spaces? A demon was cast out of a house. He went wandering for some days seeking another abode. When he returned to his first abode, he saw that it was clean, arranged but unoccupied. He became more strategic- he went to look for seven demons stronger than he was and they came to live in that house. Jesus concluded that the latter end of such a man is worse off than his beginning. 

If you just finished your high school studies, this is your most sensitive season. If you are idle, the devil will soon have a handle on your life. This is the time he will plague you with silly suggestions, and some end up with unwanted pregnancies. Go and volunteer. Learn a skill. Get into coding. Serve in your parents’ business. Never be idle. 

Cultivate the field of your mind if you do not want thorns and weeds all over the place. 

I went past the field of a sluggard, past the vineyard of someone who has no sense; thorns had come up everywhere, the ground was covered with weeds, and the stone wall was in ruins.

(Proverbs 24:30-31 NIV)

An idle mind is the devil’s workshop. Be careful!

temilOluwa Ola, Eruwa.