Don't Play in the Cesspool!

In my early childhood we lived in a church parsonage.  It had a fairly large back yard that endured a lot of play time from all of us kids.  One prominent feature of the backyard was the cesspool!  I guess you couldn't see it or smell it from the church, so it just seemed to perpetually be "our problem!"  It was there for a long time. 

A common instruction to us as we piled out the back door to play was, "now, you kids stay away from that cesspool!"  I suppose these days I am taking it for granted that people even know what a cesspool is.  Simply put - it is a watery bog, usually in a low place in the yard, directly above or very close to either the septic tank or the field line coming and going to the septic tank.  To put it more eloquently, it is a watery, smelly mess of liquid pee and poop that has broken through the top of the ground! 

Now, the cesspool was gross, but strangely alluring!  We went barefoot all summer. Sometimes while playing out in the yard we would dare each other to see how close we could get to the cesspool without getting in it!  Yep! Inevitably someone would step in it! And it was usually cool to cold.  On a hot summer day it smelled a bit more - but was a strangely fun feeling between your toes! So, sometimes we would just end up running through it - then heading for the water hose to wash off the feet.  

Gross, right?  When we were riding bikes, we would sometimes see if we could make it riding through the cesspool without getting stuck.  With enough speed you could do it. But it had been there so long that it almost had a quicksand component - so I got stuck on the bike more than a few times. 

Weird huh? A stinking smelly mess - gross actually - yet we could not stay away. Sounds familiar?

Sin is like the cesspool! It smells - it is stinky - it is not good for you - it is dangerous to your health and wellbeing - yet we are strangely attracted to it.  There is this perverse calling to sin.  Even when we fully know the dangers of playing around a dangerous mess, we seem to be even more drawn to it.   The only solution - remove the mess.

Eventually Daddy got tired of it - and like many a pastor - he got out in the backyard himself and dug up the field line by hand - installed a new one - and low and behold - the cesspool was gone!  

We could now ride bikes in forbidden territory.  We could now walk anywhere in the yard!  We could play outside without smelling sewage!  It was a new day - because the cesspool was gone.  

Are you playing in a cesspool today?  Or are you taking steps to remove it?   Remove it now! To do otherwise is dangerous to your spiritual health!