Every Little Thing

I finished with my in-processing for deployment today. At the medical station I discovered that my records were misplaced. That means I got a few extra shots. One of the shots that I received was a pretty big deal. I was vaccinated for small pox. Before I was vaccinated they showed us several pictures of individuals who had not followed the instructions and became infected with the disease. It amazed me that they would show us those things right before they gave us the shot. Were they trying to instill fear? Were they trying to cause panic in us?

They weren’t. The truth of it is that so many of us have failed to heed their warnings they needed to become more and more dramatic with their presentations. The shot is not administered normally. It is administered by puncturing the skin 15 times with a needle. It in itself causes a wound that takes up to thirty days to heal.

Thirty days is a long time for a young man to nurse a wound that doesn’t hurt or have any of the visible signs usually associated with danger. We don’t fear what we can’t see or remember. The danger from small pox is microscopic in one sense but the effects are colossal and life changing.

As I thought about this I was comparing it to the problem of sin in our lives. The scriptures paint some pretty detailed and graphic images of the effects and problems associated with sin. Over and over again in the Bible we are warned of the damaging effects of sin.

God himself is described as one who hates and punishes wickedness and sin (Isaiah 57:21; Psalm 5:4)
In the book of Genesis (4:7) the writer describes sin like it is something very menacing lying in wait for us. This is not a new problem. The scriptures say that there is nothing new under the sun. It has all been committed before. It is easy at times to see the effects of sin.

We have all seen the effects of crack cocaine on a billboard using before and after pics. We have all seen the nightly news and listened to the horror stories our neighbors commit against one another. I think it is because we are prone to forget and we have become numb to seeing death and destruction all around us.

God wants to protect us from ourselves. We as his followers have the words of life. My prayer in all of this is that we are not afraid to become more dramatic in our presentation of the danger of sin to a watching and waiting world. I pray that we will worry less about scaring (offending) people and more about failing in our mission to point people to the way, the truth, and the life…Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen