Of Mice and Sins
We park a couple of our Bible camp trailers out behind the garage in the off season, which is all but two weeks a year. It is a convenient way to store all the camp stuff until…MICE! Last year, we had a few mice decide to set up shop in one of our trailers. They did not do too much damage. As it turned out, we only lost a bucket of gunny sacks and had several foam pool noodles chewed up. Worse than the damage was the clean-up. It took a lot of time to take almost everything out of the trailer and blow out the mess of droppings and pool noodle bits that they left behind.
This fall has been a bad year for mice. We already saw some evidence in that same trailer, we had a couple in our house kitchen, and a few in the church basement as well. So, what did we do? We have a cat and she catches a lot of mice, but not the ones in enclosed spaces where she cannot go. We cannot use poison since it would probably kill our cat as well. We set a few mouse traps, traditional and sticky ones, out and we caught a few mice. But I never had much luck with the sticky traps and sometimes the mice only clean the bait off of the traditional traps without getting caught. I needed to do more, so we bought a 72 count case of mouse traps. Yes, the mice still clean off some of the traps, but statistics are now on my side. Where I used to put one trap, now I have five or six and I am catching mice every few days, BEFORE they cause devastation.
Our sins can be like mice. First, they are everywhere. Whenever I see or think about storage facilities (warehouses, storage units, grain bins, hay stacks, and even Bible stories about grain supplies,) I cannot help but think about mice and how much damage they must do. Likewise, from my own personal experiences, whenever I see another image of God (white, black, tattooed, clean-shaven, bearded, long-haired, short-haired, male, female, gender???, boss, worker, unemployed, politician, etc.) I cannot help but think about sin and how much damage it must do. Secondly, they are both destructive. If you do not get rid of the mice right away, a couple hours of clean-up can transform into thousands of dollars of damage. Likewise, if you do not get rid of your sin right away, that “little” sin of laziness, addiction, stealing, or lying will grow and could destroy your marriage, your family, and quite probably make a mess of the rest of your life. The Bible does not have any advice on mouse control, but Jesus was clear on sin, “unless you repent you will all likewise perish” (Luke 10:5). But unlike mice, there is a 100% effective way for us to conquer sin, have it forgiven, and clean up our lives forever. That way is Jesus!
“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us
our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9