Prudent vigilance

“Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all. “It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. “It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed. On that day no one who is on the housetop, with possessions inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything. Remember Lot’s wife! Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it. I tell you, on that night two people will be in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left.” (Luke 17:26-37)

Prudent vigilance must be exercised in this life, since we do not know when we will die. It is one of the distinguishing virtues of Christians. Vigilant souls live in the faithful awareness that every moment of their lives, and therefore even death, is in God's hands. Those who do not live out this faith, on the other hand, allow themselves be absorbed by thoughts of worldly activity and give them greater importance than they actually have. They try to please men more than God. Jesus asks us where we place our security: in Him who is everlasting or in the things that don’t last in this earthly life?