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If Left Unchecked...

 A few weeks ago, I noticed a significantly-sized crack on the windshield of my car... Now let me preface this with the fact that I have had a tiny spot close to the bottom of the windshield for the last two years, almost as long as I've had this car. It looked like this:


Doesn't seem all that big, does it? It's smaller than a fingernail, and the crack on my windshield had remained this small for the last two years. Until all of a sudden, I got in my car heading to campus one Tuesday morning and it wasn't this small anymore. It became this:


That curved line snuck up on me, and it kept growing for the next week and a half! It seemed like every time I got in my car it grew by 2-3 inches, and I knew I had to get it fixed right away. Driving was difficult having my line of vision distorted, and the sun always hit just the right spot to blind me with no hope of lessening the brightness with a visor. I dislike driving already, and now for this week and a half driving was a miserable chore to endure. Thankfully I was able to get it fixed fairly easily. But one day driving to work with the morning sun reflecting just right to blind me the entire drive, I was convicted of the way my own life can reflect this broken windshield.

Breaking news: I am a sinner. Shocker, right? Sin entered the world all the way back in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve's disobedience to God's command left them and the entirety of the human race with a sin nature, one still evident today. You and I all have this sin nature because of their choice way back at the start of human history.

James 1:15 says, "But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death." There is a progression here: temptation, desire, sin, death. Temptation bombards us in so many forms nearly every second of every day, and not putting a stop to the whispers of Satan can quickly become detrimental. Desires left unchecked can develop into acts of sin that start out pretty small but escalate quickly into sinful patterns that are incredibly difficult to cease. This tiny "crack" can seem to be nothing of significance, but if left unchecked it can grow until your vision is completely clouded and your life does not reflect the image of Christ. That thing you think is not a big deal, that you won't let get out of control, quickly roots itself deep in your heart and it takes more than snipping out the bud to get it out of your heart. The deeper the roots, the harder and more painful it is to extract the problem.

I thought that tiny spot on my windshield was fine. I kept watching the chink and didn't do anything to fix it. Left unchecked, it caused a major problem with my visibility when driving and took a lot of extra time trying to get it fixed.

This post is as much for me as it is for you, dear readers. I've had to ask God to reveal cracks in the windshield of my own heart and that He would show me how to fix them now so they don't grow into shattered lines that not only affect me but also affect my interactions with others. I pose to you the same questions I've asked myself: Have you taken time to check your heart and find any seemingly small patterns in your own life that could soon expand and cause major damage? Are you going to leave them unchecked, or will you ask God to fix your spiritual windshield?

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