“Mama!! Come look!” He called to me as he was running through the woods. I could tell by the sound of his voice that he had found something that was clearly exciting and needed to be seen right away. “Hurry! You need to see this.” As I approached him, I could see why he was so excited.

It was mid afternoon when we decided to go for a walk. It had been raining on and off all morning so everything just felt alive. The trees hung like a canopy draped over us. The ground was damp and the air smelled earthy. There was a light fog that blanketed everything. It made the woods look like they were in a fairytale movie. The moss that covered a stump, where a mighty tree once stood, was a bright green. Around the stump were the most beautiful orange mushrooms. Their color popped and made everything else look dull compared to them. “Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?” He asked me as I approached him. “Just look at the color of the mushroom!” I had to agree with him, they were not only beautiful, they were also so enticing. They looked like something that I just wanted to pick up and hold. They were intriguing. I was mesmerized and captivated by their beauty. I wasn’t the only one in that moment that wanted to just reach out and touch them. I could see that he was reaching out his hand to look on the underneath of the mushrooms. “Remember,” I said “we shouldn’t touch mushrooms unless we know if they are poisonous or not. Even though it’s tempting to reach out and touch them, it’s not something that we should be doing because even though they are beautiful, they also could kill us.”

After spending some time observing the mushrooms, we started walking towards home. The whole time I was thinking about the mushrooms. The imagine of them around the stump of the tree was just so beautiful and a moment I didn’t want to forget. I kept thinking back to how something so small and innocent could potentially kill us. Then it hit me, sin is the exact same way. It seems so small and innocent. It draws us in to its beauty. We want to reach out and touch it. Often thinking that one little touch wouldn’t do any harm. We see how flashy it is. “Just saying this one thing about so and so really isn’t gossiping.” “Just watching this one video that has a small sexual scene in it will be okay this time.” “Just telling one little lie won’t hurt anyone.” “No one will know if I just cheat on this one test.” The list of the ‘If I just do it this one time…’ is endless. If we are walking in the woods and come across a poisonous snake, we are not going to reach out and touch it. We are going to start backing away. We will know every single move it makes because we do not want it to come close and bite us. We are aware of where it is at all times until it has slithered away or until we have walked far away from it. Why do we not view sin like we view poison?

I find in my own life that I can quickly feed into the lies of Satan and the world. This lie that life is about me. About my happiness and contentment. When my day doesn’t go the way I think it should, I pout. I complain. I let everyone know that I am upset. If someone says something to me about my attitude, “How dare you say anything to me about it.” I will snap. I become angry at them for pointing out the sin in my life. I then complain in my head about what they said to me and grow even more angry. My response isn’t Christ honoring. My attitude doesn’t point others to Him. I struggle with wanting the world to revolve around me and my happiness. I am willing to reach out and grab the Cooper head snake. I am willing to take the chance of letting it bite me and kill me.

Sin encompasses us all. Every single moment of every single day there is a snake in front of us waiting to bite us whenever it can. It’s on our phones when we get on social media and see others complaining. We are quick to join in. It’s on our T.Vs when we watch things that fill our minds with garbage. It’s in our friendships when we spend time complaining to each other about things instead of having God honoring conversations. It’s in our marriage when we become angry with our spouse. It’s in our relationship with our children when we don’t parent them the way The Lord calls us to. Sin and snakes are everywhere. I am often quicker to run away from a snake than I am to run away from sin.

Lord, please help me to view my sin as poison and to turn from it. To see it and not reach out to touch it. To know that the path it leads me down is the path of destruction.