Sin & the Snooze Button

It starts with just nine minutes. Your alarm goes off and you think, I can hit snooze. It's just nine minutes. 

Then it goes off again, and you think the same thing. Like the proverbial frog in boiling water, you let nine minutes at a time fool you into thinking you're not that late. Until 45 minutes later you realize you've hit snooze 5 times and aren't going to be able to get that run in.

A couple days ago in the city I used to call home, two 12-year old girls plotted the murder of their friend and stabbed her 19 times. Thankfully, she survived. The two 12-year old girls have reportedly expressed little remorse even in the aftermath of this horrid event. They're looking at 60 years in prison. No high school, no college, no career, no husbands, no raising a family, no retirement party. Their futures are over before they ever started.

What does it take for a 12-year old to get to the point of trying to murder her friend? I think it's a series of snooze buttons. They didn't wake up suddenly one day after playing My Little Pony and think, "let's stab our friend." They gradually allowed darkness to creep into their lives through gruesome fictional stories. They gradually let themselves believe these stories weren't fiction. They gradually—over a series of half a year—plotted and planned this stabbing. One little advance at a time, they let Satan into their lives. One little advance at a time until they were at the point of attempted murder.

When the alarm bells start ringing, we can't ignore them. We can't hit snooze. We can't say it's only nine minutes. Because those alarm bells warn us that the more we ignore them, the more we'll head down a dark path toward sin.

"But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.” - Genesis 4:7