A grain of sand

While I was in St. Lucia a few days ago, we spent a bit of time at the beautiful beach playing in the water. But as all trips to the sandy beach go…you must walk away in sandy shoes! No matter how hard you try, it’s nearly impossible while at the beach to get your feet AND your shoes de-sanded before the time to walk comes!

On this particular day, we had a bit of walking to do from the beach to the place to get a taxi and then more walking from the taxi drop to our hotel. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love to walk! But this day….or that time exactly, I would have preferred not to do quite so much walking!

And here is the reason why.

In my flip-flop strap there was a tiny piece of sand. It rubbed against my foot as I waked. At first it was just there…I mean my whole foot was sandy! But as I kept walking, it did not fall away as did most of the sand.

It stayed there….and rubbed and rubbed and rubbed against my foot.

I tried to shift my foot around as I walked but that did not help. So I just ignored it as best I could and enjoyed the rest of the lovely walk home. When I got home, I got all cleaned up and then noticed something. It was a tiny blister worn on the top of my foot…right where that tiny grain of sand rode home!

And then I got to thinking.

Sin.

It’s like sand.

It’s tiny.

It looks no different than all the other grains of life.

What happens when sin rubs against us? At first it makes a blister and it is avoided at all costs.

Sin is like that.

If we let that grain of sin into our lives and let it stay there, then eventually it becomes a callous, and not a painful blister. We begin to accept it as part of life and think nothing more about it.

But God cannot be happy with that!

Isaiah 59:1-2 states that sin separates us from God. We think we are fine with a callous because that is what Satan wants us to believe. But we need to step back, look at all our callouses and get rid of the bad ones! Just as I washed that tiny grain of sand off my flip-flop, so we must do with our spiritual life.

Do you have a callous that needs a good scrub?

Then open your Bible and spend time in God’s Word. He through the Bible can take that callous away!