The story’s told of a farmer who was being pestered every day by a flock of crows in his cornfield. Deciding he’d had enough, he loaded his shotgun and crawled unseen along the fencerow, determined to blow those pesky crows out of the sky. Turns out this farmer had a very sociable parrot that indiscriminately made friends with everybody, and seeing the flock of crows he flew over and joined them in an effort to be friendly. The farmer saw the crows but didn’t see his parrot, so he took careful aim, fired, then jumped up and ran over to see how many crows he had shot. Lo and behold, there was his parrot lying on the ground with a broken wing and a chipped beak, but still alive. The farmer tenderly picked him up and brought him home, where his children ran out to meet him. Seeing the injured parrot, they tearfully asked, ‘Daddy, what happened?’ But before he could answer, the parrot spoke up: ‘That’s what you get for hanging out with the wrong crowd.’ You can never be at the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing, if you’re with the wrong crowd.
And as a parent, you need to teach this to your children. Monitor their Internet use, and warn them about predators who deliberately prowl online looking for ‘friends’. Web-based horror stories of children being hurt and led astray are multiplying daily. If this sounds strong and urgent - that’s because it is!
Jer 9-11, 2 Thess 2
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