Last night we were out at my in laws' farm unloading some hay into the barn. I walked through the pasture to get to the old barn and I choked,
What is that smell? I thought. It wasn't just ordinary pasture smell that assailed my senses. Horses don't smell
that bad. I looked around and I identified some black stuff under the oak tree. I don't know what that black substance was, but it was super stinky. I quickly walked past it and continued on my path to the barn.
After the hay was unloaded we needed to take the trailer out of the pasture. My father in law (I will call him "Dad," because that is how I address him) asked me to open the gate for him to leave. As I approached the gate my senses were once again aggravated by that horrid smell.
What is
that smell?!, I thought again. I stood by the gate waiting for my dad to pull the truck around. He stopped to hook up a cattle gate to keep the horses out of the fresh hay and I waited a few moments. While I waited, I let my eyes drift here and there. I thought about the cows next door, the animals that might be living in the old barn, and the poisonous water snakes that we saw in the pond last year. Meanwhile my eyes came back to the old oak tree and I saw that black stuff.
I thought, as I looked at the black stuff, that it was odd that I was no longer bothered by the awful smell. Then, it hit me.
Isn't that just like sin?!
When we first approach sin we see it for what it is - stinky black stuff that we should not want to be around. But, the longer we linger, the less we are bothered by the smell. We get desensitized to sin. Whether it is that person that we ought not be spending time with, that certain kind of music that we just won't let go of, or our favorite television shows. We need to try to keep our distance from the filth so that we can smell the stink when we approach it.
Lastly, we need to check our hearts often for dirt, the same way I check my boots when I step out of the pasture. We need to make sure that if we have allowed ourselves to be dirtied by the World, that we let God clean us off again.
If we confess our sins,
He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
By: Bethany Woods, Author at
Seeds of Promise, Harvest of Hope blog
