On Dead Rats

A couple of weeks ago I saw a small mouse in the youth room at church. He ran back and forth between the two couches a couple of times, but I could never catch him. I'm too civil to get a mouse trap, so I just decided to let him be. After all, there's no food in there or anything. So, I thought he'd just leave eventually.

Well, it turns out I was right and wrong at the same time. He did leave. He left his earthly body, that is, and left us with a dead rat. The method of finding him, though, is quite funny.

Our pastor came in earlier this afternoon to see me, and he kept wrinkling his nose and asking what that smell was. I didn't really smell it in the youth room, but I really smelled it in the hallway. Either way, we never could find anything. Then, when the youth showed up, one of them sat down on the couch, causing the cushion to rise up a little bit on the side. Well, when the cushion rose up a little bit, it revealed a dead mouse. Yep, one of my youth sat on a dead rat. Of course, chaos ensued with screaming girls and teenagers running around the room while one of my redneck boys grabbed it by the tail and threw it outside.

Yeah, it was pretty great.

Like my youth room, sometimes our hearts get "rats" in them. We notice something early on in our hearts that isn't right, something that shouldn't be there. But, we don't feel like fooling around long enough to chase it out, and we let it stay there. The sin "rat" eventually makes its home in our hearts, causing it to spiritually stink. It fouls up our entire life to the point that people around us notice it, too.

I learned a lesson today. If you see a rat running around in your house, don't let it stay there, no matter how cute and fuzzy it may be. You have to get rid of the thing, otherwise it will stink up your whole house.

Don't let sin do the same thing to your heart.