Plan for it

So I have always had a theory on getting into trouble. You can't plan for it, but you can plan to stay out of it. Most everyone knows what their weakness is and the best thing you can do is plan your way around it. Make sure you do things in a way that it doesn't allow for you to get caught with spare time in a situation where you can allow yourself to stumble. I just got through with Josh Hamilton's story, the book is a great read. He was a pro baseball player who was given 3.96 million dollars to play baseball straight out of high school. He got injured in a car wreck, had some back injuries that it took months for the doctors to figure out and ended up with a lot of down time. He was the kind of kid who never did drugs, drank or even went out in high school. He even skipped homecoming dances and proms to avoid getting caught up in anything that make him mess up his chances at professional baseball.
Well, after his injury in the minor leagues he was left with a lot of down time. He went to a tattoo parlor and got a tattoo, then another then another. Pretty soon the guys doing the ink work invited him to come hang out with them. He got offered some crack and got hooked. That sent his life on a downward spiral that led to him being kicked out of baseball, and he even traded his wife's wedding ring in on crack. All this because he was sitting around with free time and didn't plan for avoiding trouble.
He came face to face with his situation after a few years of attempted rehab clinics and doctors he realized he couldn't do it alone. He asked God to take control of the situation even if it meant he would never do anything he loved again, just to get him clean from the drugs was all he wanted. He opened up a Bible after giving his life to God and read James 4:7 Submit yourselves to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. He said to this day, some 4 years later he still quotes that to himself in his down time.
There's another verse that applies to this situation. Ephesians 5:15 "Be careful then how you live, because the days are evil."
We must be careful how we spend our time. We need to plan our days and our free time to involve people and events and things that will keep us out of trouble and not allow for trouble. I have seen far too many teens and young adults with too much free time start experimenting with things they shouldn't and get hooked in on them.
So plan your time wisely, plan it so that you don't get into a situation to stumble.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!