Attack of the Termites……

Attack of the Termites……
This morning was supposed to be a regular Saturday morning. Try to sleep in (despite the noise outside), enjoy some down time in my room, and welcome some visitors. Well, soon after I woke up this morning started with a bang. I decided to do a quick closet (cupboard) cleaning. Yes, I am one of those people that shoves and closes the closet when life gets a little too busy. I was going to leave one of the shelves but decided I had an extra five minutes to organize it real QUICK. That ended up being an understatement of the year! After taking a couple of items off the shelf to my horror I found that it was invested with termites. Not a pretty sight. Luckily they had only eaten through a box of TERRO ant killer- ironic, but I saved the Dutch Blitz game before it was too late! The next forty-five minutes consisted of fumigating the closet with DOOM- two times. Then washing out the closet with HOT, boiling water. Then bleaching the closet twice! Needless to say it was all pretty disgusting and I don’t wish to have another run in with termites ever again! As I was reflecting on the situation it surprised me. I open my closet every day, in fact several times a day and these little guys have been at work for a while and I didn’t even notice. It is amazing how “things” can creep into our lives and we can be oblivious to it, or trying really hard to ignore it. Come to think of it when I returned from holiday I did notice the termite trail, but hit it with a quick spray of DOOM and thought that would take care of it. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised this morning at how quickly termites can multiply and make a mess. It really just reminds me of sin. It can so easily “creep” into our lives. We might recognize it at first, say a quick prayer and hope that it is gone. But if sin is not dealt with properly it will only eat away other areas of our life. And before we know it is its infesting our lives and we don’t even know how it happened. But the heart of the matter is that it was NOT dealt with properly. Sin can eat away at us and if we don’t take the time to truly KILL it and get rid of it, it will only return with a vengeance. How do we get rid of sin? First, we need to go to the Savior and humbly ask for forgiveness. Second, we need to “attack” the sin with proper tools- prayer, WORD of GOD, accountability, and a change of direction. I needed to use ALL the means I could to get rid of those termites; we need to do the same with sin. Lastly, we need to keep an eye on the “weak” area of our heart. It will be easy for these termites to return if I missed just one. So the next couple of days/ weeks I really need to watch the infected area. Same with our hearts, we may have taken the steps to rid us of sin, but we have to keep alert to not fall back into bad habits and sinful ways. My prayer for all of us today is that we will turn to the Savior who, “forgives ALL our sins” (Ps 103:3). He desires to wrap us in His loving arms and give us the grace and strength to press on through our areas of weakness and come out victorious for HIS GLORY! May HE be glorified through you! Praise the LORD!