As children, our parents often warned us not to misbehave or we would be put on Santa’s naughty list.  Elementary school teachers wrote our names on the blackboard for infractions such as talking while they were teaching or chewing gum in the classroom.  We knew getting on the blackboard list meant we would be excluded from recess that day.  Our desire to receive Christmas gifts encouraged most of us to avoid Santa’s bad girl/bad boy list and our anticipation towards playing kickball, dodgeball, or jumping rope made us want to keep our name off the blackboard as well. 

Now that we are grown and “childish things have been put away”, we don’t have to worry about those two lists.  There is, however, another list that should raise concern for us; one that we should make all efforts to stay off.  Proverbs 6:16-19(NLT) details this list:  These verses describe seven behaviors or characteristics that God detests:  arrogant eyes, a lying tongue, killing the innocent, a heart that plots evil, feet that run to do wrong, false witnessing, and sowing conflict within the family.

Avoiding Santa’s naughty list saved our Christmas presents, avoiding the blackboard list saved our play time, avoiding the list outlined in the above verses will save our soul.

Tanika Feaster is a wife, mother, Christian writer/blogger and owner of EnSpired Web Content, a company that provides content for business websites, blogs, and social media pages.  You can read some of her inspirational works on FaithWriters and Weekly Inspiration(www.tonguepower.com).