Where There Is Smoke There Is Fire

I thought about a story that happened to me years ago when I purchased a used car for my daughter.   I noticed that there was some trouble that the car had in the muffler system so I took it back to the dealer to have the brackets redone.  They repaired the system but as I got about 5 miles away from the dealer, and thought that the car was sounding better, I happened to look in my driver's side mirror and saw smoke coming from underneath the car.  I immediately pulled over and to my surprise my car was on fire.  When I got out of it, I noticed that the fire was right next to the gas tank.  Here I was riding along thinking that I was safe and pretty secure and low and behold my life was in danger and I knew nothing about it. 

Sometimes, everything can appear to be going well and, unknown to you, there is imminent danger waiting to possibly take you out. While you have to always look in front of you because that is the direction that you are going in, every now and then you need to take a look behind you so that nothing can creep up on you and catch you unaware. You see, the dealership fixed the broken pipe, but they caused a much bigger problem. 

There are people who can help you in one area of your life, but do extensive damage in another area.  The dealership had to give me another car since their mechanic caused the fire.  It's simply not that easy when it comes down to our lives and the fires that we allow to catch us off guard.  We don't know if we can recover from taking advice from people who may be good to be around for a season but can give us the wrong kind of advice that could cause us to loose it all.  Except God give us another chance we definitely may lose it all. 

I could talk about Amnon who seemingly was helped by Jonadab to get what he wanted which was Tamar, his sister, but the advice literally destroyed him.  He got temporary pleasure, but in the long run it took his life.  Amnon was next in line for the throne but he had a taste for the forbidden.  He took some really bad advice which set up what seemed to be the perfect opportunity to get something that he really wanted.   His friend knew just how bad he wanted this thing, so he presented a plan to him to make happen.  He got the girl, but lost his inheritance, and his life.  There are people who can help you get what you want but in the long run it may cause you to loose what you had.