Poison Ivy

We have recently purchased some ground in Pennsylvania. We hope to someday build a house there and move. It is 12.5 acres of beautiful woods, and a trout stream. We enjoyed some time there this past weekend. We hiked, fed the fish, talked, and planned. Somehow, somewhere, we got into something bad - without any notice or warning we were in poison ivy. In fact, I still might not know that we were in it – if I didn’t itch from head to toe. We had no idea that we had come into contact with this poison.

This reminds me that not a day goes by that we don’t step out into our day with a plan to accomplish our goals. We may set out to do good things, to help others, to be a servant. What we don’t realize is that temptation and sin are just around the corner. They are looking for us to grab hold of us. They want to spread their poison all over our lives. They want to take us away from what we had set out to do.

We need to know how to recognize sin and run from it. Just as I never saw the poison ivy but now get to pay the consequences for getting into it, so it is with sin. Watch out for sin and run from it. Even a minor brush with sin will leave its mark on you.

"Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart" (2 Timothy 2:22).