August 25, 2009
I tend to post insightful or random blogs… The one is insightful…. The next will be the random surfing story…
Summer in Seattle is wonderful. For the first time in months, the sun shines continuously. The lakes are filled with people boating, jet skiing, and enjoying the cool 80 degree air. Houses are empty as people take advantage of the climate, walking, hiking, and just being outside. There are BBQ’s, parties, and sweet summer fun- but the one thing that summer brings that I don’t like is flies. Fruit flies to be exact. It gets so bad in the summer time at our house that we move our garbage outside, and STILL have flies in the house.
To make up for this annoyance, my roommate has wisely concocted a fruit fly trap- a small dish of apple cider vinegar with a few pumps of dish soap. The kitchen smells, but it works like a charm, and the smell is SO worth not having flies everywhere! Within a day I notice ten dead flies in the dish, more than I knew we even had in the kitchen. But I notice something else, too. There are a few flies, hanging out on a kitchen curtain near the trap, just watching it. They’re still alive, they haven’t entered in the bowl yet, but there they were. Just chillin. Hanging out. Checkin’ out the scene. Smelling the, uh, apples. After several days in a row, I saw the same sight and wondered, “Why are they there? Don’t they know it’s a trap?”
The way it works is the apple cider smell attracts the flies, and the dish soap actually kills/traps them. There is something about dish soap that makes the flies unable to get out of whatever substance (water, or in this case cider) that you put out for them. But the flies don’t know, and the flies watch the trap anyway. They see their dead friends. And they still go in. It’s not more than a day after watching before each fly ends up entering the trap and suffering the fate of their fly friends. But- didn’t they know it would end that way??
And then I think- how many times are we like the flies?
You might respond like I did at first, saying, “What- me? Never! I’m way too smart for that! I’m not like these stupid flies.” But are you? Am I?
I’ve been impressed with a thought from Joyce Meyer lately. “Think about what you’re thinking about.” “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” Proverbs 23:7 Because what you think about is where you end up. Just like the flies. And I need to watch my thoughts. Maybe you do too. The flies literally sit and stare at a trap, they watch their fly buddies die, and yet they still go in- and they die too.
I’ve been battling with some temptations lately, and I’ve thought- ‘God, where is this COMING from? That is the old me- we’ve passed this! What’s going on?’ And I was impressed to think about what I’m thinking about. I had to think- what am I filling my mind with? What movies am I watching? What books am I reading? What music am I listening to? And what message are they giving me?
You see- even when we don’t know if something is bad for us- we still take in when we’re exposed to it. So when we repeatedly expose ourselves to unrighteous messages (even when we don’t realize it), we start to believe them. Just like the flies watching the fly trap, so we can start focusing on and heading toward compromise and sin.
And it starts in your thoughts. You justify that you’re just thinking about it- it’s not like you’re actually doing it. And that’s where it begins. The flies see that the other flies are dead- and they still sit and stare at it. They inch closer to it, because really, they don’t think it will hurt them. And isn’t that how we are?
I wonder if the little fly thinks he’s smarter, stronger, and that ”it won’t happen to him.” The sad thing is- it sure does. (And my house is fly free!) Unfortunatley for the little guy, he was too interested in the forbidden fruit fly trap, and didn’t walk away. I wonder if at first, he just sat there thinking how good it smelled, not planning to do anything about it (because he saw his dead friends). But he did….
The problem with us becomes- when we go against our convictions and think about sin, and then we start to justify the sin… You’re smelling the cider, just like the fly. And if you justify it in someone else’s life-whether it’s the latest pop hookup or your best friend’s bad habits- it won’t be long before you justify it in your own.
Thoughts become actions, habits, and character. Think about what you’re thinking about and run from sin. The Bible says to “RUN” from temptation for a reason! If you hang out too long, it will get the best of you. So do yourself a favor- RUN. FLY away from the sin trap around you. Stop adoring it, stop thinking about it! The choice is yours. Don’t be like the flies, who stick around and get sucked in. Don’t get stuck in a trap.
