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VIGILANCE

James Neville ran unopposed for mayor of Baxter States New York and lost to John Maher, the man he'd taken the office from in 2001. Maher's supporters launched a stealth write-in campaign, which took Neville totally by surprise. Because he was running unopposed, Neville didn't campaign for the office, he took his re-election for granted. Neville said, "I got lazy."

—http://www.newkerala.com/news-daily/news/features.php?action=fullnews&id=87274. Illustration by Jim L. Wilson

I don't want to sound paranoid here, but the truth is, we can never drop our guard. We must always be on the alert, because we have a real enemy, an unseen enemy that is constantly prowling and looking for an opportunity to exploit our vulnerabilities and defeat us.

1 Peter 5:8 NLT "Be careful! Watch out for attacks from the Devil, your great enemy. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for some victim to devour."

VIGILANCE

We need to be as diligent as possible when dealing with money. Olesja Schemjakowa received her bank statement and discovered a charge for 7,709.90 Swiss francs for a cup of coffee and a cake. The Russian woman had ordered the snack at a Swiss café and paid for it with her credit card. She discovered that she accidentally entered her PIN code—7687—as the tip on the establishment’s credit card machine.

When she asked the credit card company to cancel the charge, they could not because the payment wasn’t fraudulent. She then contacted the café owner, who promised to return the money, but then went out of business. “That’s just not fair!” she says.

The Week, May 18, 2018, p. 12

It probably isn’t fair. In our world there are always those who would take advantage of a person who was less than vigilant. An Americanized version of an old British saying says,”Take care of your pennies and your dollars will take care of themselves.”

Proverbs 10:4 (CSB)

“Idle hands make one poor,

but diligent hands bring riches.”