Solid Until You Lean On It

By Pastor Justin Cooper

Years ago I walked a mountain trail in West Virginia a thousand times. I knew it like the back of my hand. I cleared it, I worked it, I could have walked it with my eyes closed. So one dark night I left a cabin in a hurry — confident, casual, sure of myself — and I put my foot down where I thought the ground was.

There was nothing there.

I went off the side of that trail, about twenty feet, and tore my ankle up. And here is what I want you to hear. Everyone would say I fell that night. But that is not the whole truth.

"I fell long before I fell."

I fell when I got full of pride about my ability to walk that trail. I fell when I got in a hurry. I fell when I quit watching my step. The stumble on the cliff was only the last thing that happened — the fall started long before, in a hundred quiet choices no one saw.

I think that is exactly how it works with sin. You and I like to say we "fell into" something, as if it reached up and grabbed us. But that is not what happened.

"We don't fall into sin. We decide to sin. Falling is the result. The decision is the problem."

The Bible tells you and me to guard the small stuff before it ever becomes the big stuff. In First Thessalonians 5 and verse 22 it says to abstain from all appearance of evil. That is God being kind to us — pulling us back at the first casual step, long before the cliff.

Here is the hard part I have to preach to myself first. The average Christian spends far more time preparing their look for church than their heart. It is easier to comb my hair and knot my tie and grab my Bible than it is to make sure I am right with God on the inside. A tree can look solid and sturdy right up until you lean on it — and your hand goes straight through the rot.

Before you look in the mirror, look at your heart. Give God the first honest minutes of your day. Ask Him to show you the casual step you have been taking — the small drift you keep excusing — and deal with it now, while it is still small.

Watch your step today. The fall never starts where you think it does.