I was handed a smoothie, it was my favorite flavor, orange vanilla. I took a long sip through the straw, which had already placed in the lid, and as I swallowed an awful, blinding pain hit me in the head over my right eye. I tried all the remedies everyone suggested to stop it but nothing worked until it had finished its course leaving me holding my head between the palms of my hands. I knew I should have been careful and sipped it slowly, I have had brain freezes in the past so why did I throw caution to the wind and draw in that long sip of freezing liquid? Because it was my favorite flavor, orange vanilla. Was the taste worth the pain I was feeling in my head? As good as it was I would have to say no! Why do we do any thing that we do when we know it is going to cause us trouble? Because we are not thinking about the consequences our actions will cause, we are only thinking about the pleasure of the taste. Before you judge yourself too harshly look around at all the people that had so much to lose by acting out their foolish desires and yet they went for it. It isn’t limited to people that no one really cares about, we do things and it doesn’t get published in the headlines, it doesn’t make it less wrong for us, it’s just that fewer people care about what we do, but what about someone that could lose a huge ministry, or have it cost an election to a coveted government post?
You can always go to the Bible for examples of people that would have made the Enquirer headlines; let’s start with Adam and Eve, I can see it all now “First couple eat fruit from forbidden tree and are found NAKED and hiding in the trees!” That would make me stop in the grocery line to read and I might even pick it up and buy it to see what had caused them to do something so obviously stupid! Look at one of the First Family brothers, Cain, the son of the naked and banished couple! He let his anger get the best of him and spilled the first human blood and God spoke saying “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground!”
There is a long list of people we could name who made huge mistakes and mine would be included, but we also know that there is grace and forgiveness, Hebrews 4:16 “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” How many times have I said “I will never…” and named some dreadful thing I know I will never do only to find myself right in the middle of some soap opera drama all over again, and if you tell the truth you have done the same. So what is the conclusion of this matter? Don’t judge someone when you see their face all contorted in the pain of a brain freeze, you might be the next one that takes a long, cold swallow of the particular sin that freezes yours!
Harolene.com 