I wrote on Tuesday about the importance of warnings. By the way, the weather Wednesday was a balmy 70+ degrees all day. Today it hasn’t made it to 20 degrees, and it’s snowing…as we were warned! Just like Jesus warned us:

Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come. It’s like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with their assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch. Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back—whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to everyone: “Watch!” (Mark 13.33 – 37, NIV, emphasis mine)

I quoted this on Tuesday, but I didn’t really specify what living by Mark 13’s warnings might look like. But today, my friend Ray referred me to Deuteronomy 4.9, which speaks perfectly to what keeping watch might include. Here it is in The Message, with bullet points so we don’t miss any of it:

• Just make sure you stay alert.
• Keep close watch over yourselves.
• Don’t forget anything of what you’ve seen.
• Don’t let your heart wander off.
• Stay vigilant as long as you live.
• Teach what you’ve seen and heard to your children and grandchildren.

This is enough to keep us busy, and a further warning to us is that the Israelites didn’t keep watch, and the nation suffered for it (read the rest of the Old Testament!).

And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the LORD or the work that he had done for Israel. (Judges 2.10, ESV)