Wednesdays in the Word: Verse K

Today's verse is a hard one. Not necessarily hard to memorize, if you're memorizing, because it's not terribly long. But the invitation it provides is a hard one.

Here's the thing about sin: it's attractive to the person participating.

It just is.

We want to think, when we study what constitutes sin, that we would run from it...screaming. We want to think we would find it so awful...so repulsive...so foul...that we would just run.

I remember back in my early, early college days, when some of my friends were playing with boundaries that many young adults play with as they experience freedom for the first time. I remember vehemently journaling that I was absolutely APPALLED that they would even consider glancing in the direction of the behavior, much less walking toward it. Did they know NOTHING???

And yet I confess that as time went along, some of those same temptations came my way, and suddenly I got it. I understood their draw to it. It had become attractive to me, too, and turning my head was so hard.

So here's the thing about this verse...I'm sure it is a sweet offering in the ears of God when He hears one of His children ask to be kept from sin. When He looks at a soul He loves and knows that soul wants to live honorably by resisting sin that seems so attractive...how much that must warm His heart!

But at the same time...to say to God, Please keep me from sin...don't let it rule me...we truly have no idea what we're asking. Inviting God to do that kind of pruning work is a hard request. Usually He doesn't just remove us entirely from the temptation...but He sustains us in it. It's a soul-workout.

It's hard. But God is bigger than a hard task. If you invite Him to work, He will equip you for the task. He will. And the reward of allowing God to have dominion in your life rather than sin...is so worth it.