I am just looking

I baked some farm cookies today. My own version.  Tessa and Ian have been happily helping me, mostly by offering to taste test.  I was in another room when I overheard Ian say, "hey, stay away from the cookies."  Tessa quickly responded, "I am just looking."  I came in to find her hovering over the cooling cookies. 

We treat sin that way sometimes, don't we?  We tell ourselves that we don't actually want to sin, but we just want to look at it.  We want smell it. We tell ourselves that we can stand in the face of the temptation.

But here's the thing, often we cannot.  We look, we long, we give in...eventually.

Proverbs 7 speaks to this lack of wisdom.  It tells of a young man wandering on the street on the wrong side of town.  He knows what kinds of things happen there, but he just wants a look.  Just one look. 

A woman comes to him.  She is seductive.  She tells him that she can fill all his wishes.  She offers to fill all his desires.  She also hints that there is no danger.  You see, her husband just left.  She tells him that she wants him.  She says that she is eager for him.  Her desire weakens his resolve.  His foundations crumble and eventually just give way.  Verses 22 and 23 tell the end of the story: "All at once he follows her, as an ox goes to the slaughter, or as a stag is caught fast, till an arrow pierces its liver, as a bird rushes into a snare; he does not know that it will cost him his life." 

Flee from sin, don't stop to "just look."