On (Dead) Animal Crossings

About a week ago, I was driving down the road, headed into town from my house. All of a sudden I see this fox squirrel run out in the middle of the road. He kind of sits there in the road, as I approach him. Then, another care comes around the curve, headed towards us. So there sits the squirrel in the middle of the road as both cars bear down on him. He turns left, no right, no left again, hesitates for a second, then darts left--only to get hit by the other car.

Fast-forward a couple of days.

I'm driving down the same stretch of road, when I see a buzzard in the distance, sitting right on the yellow line in the middle of the road. As I approach, he doesn't move. There's another care coming towards him from the other direction. He still doesn't move. Then right before the other car got to him, he finally flew off to the left--right into the bumper of the oncoming car.

Weird, huh? I'm thinking that if I were that buzzard, I'd see that squirrel sitting there and think to myself, "You know, that squirrel is pretty fast, and it got its brains splattered on the road because it was too stupid to move. Perhaps I shouldn't go out there on that dangerous road." The buzzard obviously was thinking differently. Whatever he was eating in the middle of the road was just too good to pass up.

How similar are we? We stand by and watch our family, friends, peers, and mentors fall into traps of sin and get crushed by it. However, instead of getting away, we find ourselves standing at the same intersections in life, trying to get as close as we can to sinful things without getting hit. After all, that temptation may affect them, but it surely won't affect us.

Pride is a dangerous thing.

We are reminded by Paul in 1 Corinthians that we should be careful: "Let him who stands take heed before he falls."

We ought to take a lesson from the people around us. We are too weak to stand that close to sin and not get burned. We ought to run as far away from temptation as we can. Don't stand near it. Flee.

Otherwise, you'll just end up as spiritual roadkill.