Danger Lurking in the Workplace

""Danger, Danger!", is the TV series Lost in Space robot's warning to humans when he sensed a threat in their presence It's an appropriate phrase that comes to mind when I think of men and women working together in the workplace. Sometimes men and women working together can be like quicksand waiting for its next victim.

I am not addressing the philanderer types who know what they are doing. In their case, the danger is the ingredient that drives their behavior. I am addressing the nice kind Christian workers, those not even thinking about committing adultery. Their kindness and their caring hearts can cause them to be blind to the danger surrounding them.

When we are going through trials, it is difficult to hide our disappointments and stress from those we spend most of our hours with at work. And it is a natural reaction for a kind caring Christian to reach out and console another hurting human being. But this is a dangerous act for a Christian to do at work toward one of the opposite sex especially when things might not be perfect in their own life.

The caring attention causes the one in stress to confide more, which causes the one reaching out to draw closer. Both are unaware of what is beginning to unfold. It can start out with simple casual conversations and frequent encounters to check on the hurting person. Then the caregiver begins to share their unhappiness to make the other person feel better by showing them they are not alone in the unhappiness department. So then the tables turn. The one hurting becomes the caregiver. The two begin to unconsciously discover they have things in common. Slowly and unsuspectingly they become soul mates. Short verbal exchanges evolve to longer conversations over lunch and then suddenly the love-quicksand is completely surrounding them. They eventually find themselves doing something they never dreamed of doing but now the love-quicksand is so strong they cannot break away from its grasp.

The solution to this possible scenario is to simply make a rule to not get too involved with consoling someone of the opposite sex. You might think you are too strong to fall in this trap but don't tempt yourself to prove it. Quicksand disguises itself as a harmless muddy hole but its depth and strength lurks below the surface. Consoling a hurting person seems completely harmless and we love the idea that we might be able to say the perfect thing to make a difference in someone's life but Satan is hiding behind the curtains making maneuvers that are unfamiliar to you. These acts of Satan are very familiar to him and they are precisely custom tuned for the victims involved.

I beg you to take this warning seriously. Once a marriage has been comprised by adultery, whether it was physical or only an emotional affair, it takes two incredibly strong and committed individuals many years and lots of hard work to repair the damage that has occurred. It rarely heals without permanent scars. Most of the time the pain and/or guilt are so severe that divorce appears to be the only option to take.

Healing together is possible if you both place your hearts in the hands of God. If God can raise to life a body, that has been dead for four days and has begun to decay, then how easy would it be for him to raise to life your dead and withdrawn heart? Nothing is impossible with God. (Luke 1:37)

If either person, the caregiver or the one hurting, is married then resist the temptation to come to the rescue and allow their same gender friends to help them through their problems or refer them to someone of the same gender that you trust to help them. Help them - but help them from a safe distance.

My writing skills are far from perfect but this is a warning I wish everyone, married or single, could read and maybe a marriage somewhere could avoid the unsuspecting danger of what seems like harmless acts of Christian love.

Remember, Satan parades amongst Christians as an angel of Light. He is the perfect chameleon. Satan is the prince of evil to those desiring to seek and find evil but he is an angel of Light to those seeking good so that he can later shock and deceive them. Like we lure mice into traps by fronting it with harmless tasty foods, Satan leads Christians into sin traps by fronting it with harmless good intentions.

In reality, this suggestion applies to any consoling act in any profession or situation or place – even Church – not just in the workplace.

2 Peter 3:17 Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness.


Written by: M H Spicer