How Poison?

Although I no longer watch "My Name is Earl" one of the early episodes had a scene in which Earl's Ex-wife was trying to kill him for insurance money, and sent him some poison cookies. The friend sent to deliver them warned Earl so he obviously didn't eat them, and set them aside. Later Earl's brother Randy shows up, sees the cookies, and is about to have one and Earl says "Don't eat those, they're poisoned". Randy hesitates, hand hovering, looks at Earl and asks "HOW poison?". We smile at that, that in order to enjoy a cookie Randy is willing to eat a poison cookie as long as it doesn't actually kill him.

Yesterday I flashed on that scene as I was considering how we sometimes consider allowing sin in our lives. We wonder if it's really all that bad. We think "sure, it's not ideal" but we try to think whether or not this little bit is actually going to hurt us. In order to enjoy a movie we might put up with a little violence or profanity, not enough to kill our christian walk, just enough to make us a little sick is all (we hope). Perhaps we indulge in harmful substances that truly are a poison over time. I don't need to list the examples, we all know what our temptations are.

While we easily recognize how wrong it is to eat a poison cookie, we have a little more trouble with "maybe just a little sin is safe" and although our Heavenly Father sees our every choice He is not forcing our decisions. My best advice is the next time you hear that soft voice warning you something is wrong, consider Earl's poison cookies and exercise your right to say "no" to temptation (or good times tainted with bad ingredients, as the devil loves to cook those up).