When I was ninteen, I was enjoying the Lord’s move in my life. I was learning to pray, worship, and tell people about what he was doing for me. But somehow I got restless. I can’t explain why I looked to the right and to the left, but I began to consider going back to a bad relationship. I knew this was not the Lord’s will. But I allowed myself to crave what was not for me to have.
One night I was standing inside a dark gymnasium, hoping to see her. I didn’t know what I would say when I saw her— but I just had to see her.
And there standing across the room, was the one I had thought about so often.
Beautiful.
She greeted me warmly.
We locked eyes.
Beautiful
I looked at her face–
“Don’t worry about it.”
I looked at her eyes.
Beautiful.
But her mouth looks yellow somehow.
“Just ignore it.”
We went out into the courtyard.
As we began to talk, I noticed what I had seen earlier. I tried not to look, because I didn’t want to be rude. But finally I couldn’t help myself.
She knew what I was looking at.
“Oh…you’re looking at my teeth…I have this gum disease that…”
She pulled back her lips to show me her mouth, if you could call it that. Her teeth were much too large and a dark yellow.
Her gums looked like raw hamburger. Blood seeped between every tooth.
Further back were tusks, like that of a wild boar.
She was rotting from the inside out–
I took a step back, overcome by the sheer presence of evil. I no longer wanted to be with her. I wanted to be somewhere safe, away from the disease that threatened to do to me what it had already done to the inside of her.
Because there was nothing safe about the woman I was with—I started to walk away, but found myself looking at the ceiling. Everybody in the house was asleep.
I sat there for a moment, shaken by what sin looked like—what compromise looked like to the Lord. In the flesh, there is something about temptation that is a welcomed interruption. An opportunity to daydream, before we marshal a manufactured indignation to say ‘no.’ Inside we say “see you tomorrow.”
But what I had just seen didn’t line up with my past experience. This was unrestrained iniquity–and it’s desire was for me.
This was sin in the eyes of God. And I considered myself warned. Whenever you have the unpleasant chance of a lifetime to see the true horror of sin pre-committed, there is nothing sweeter than the holiness of God. You don’t walk to Him timidly. You run as fast as your legs can carry you. The throne of grace was made for spritners.
