Rumble Strips and Guard Rails

Sometimes there is nothing you can do when someone self destructs, as I happened to witness recently. The person secretly lives two lives, and before you know it, one life explodes into the other and destroys them both along with the people that they care most about. When I see this happen, it saddens me and reminds me of a message that I heard at my church a year or two ago called "Rumble Strips and Guard Rails".

The premise behind the message is that there are things that you can do, that once done, there is no going back to the way things were. An affair if you are married, drinking-if you are an alcoholic, drugs, abusing a spouse either mentally or physically, the list can go on and on. Those are the Guard Rails.

The Rumble Strips are the warnings that lead up to the Guard Rails. This could be things such as: going to a bar with the guys-if you are an alcoholic, meeting with a member of the opposite sex in a private setting, hanging out with someone that you know will tempt you with a drug because they'll be doing that drug, a feeling of anger or resentment toward someone, or maybe staying up late so that you can be alone on the computer.

Both the Rumble Strips and the Guard Rails are important to know and recognize. Without the rumble strips, by the time you realize you are at the Guard Rail, it's too late. You're crashing through it because of too much momentum. Usually, when I see someone crashing through the Guard Rails, it is because they either ignored the Rumble Strips-or it is because they never bothered to install them in the first place. Do you know what your Rumble Strips and Guard Rails are?