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

Spirits

With Halloween approaching, I thought I'd blog about my beliefs on ghosts and evil in the world.

I don't believe in ghosts. I do believe in evil spirits. The difference is that ghosts are the alleged spirits of those who have died, lingering in this world. I don't believe that can happen. But I do believe in evil spirits—Satan's minions who do things to invoke fear in people. And I believe that often, they may return to places where evil has triumphed to invoke this fear. I think houses where murders or other terrible acts have occurred can be haunted—not by the ghosts of the victims, but by the evil spirits that came with the evil acts.

I believe in seances. There is biblical evidence for this being a possible thing. (King Saul consults with a witch to bring back Samuel's spirit for military advice.) The Bible is also clear that this is wrong, and not something to be messed with.

I think most of Halloween is light-hearted fun. I love dressing myself and my dogs up in costume, handing out candy, and carving pumpkins. Even "haunted" corn mazes and the like don't bother me, because I don't believe these things truly tap into the power of evil.

I've only had one really spooky experience of my own. It was on my honeymoon. Dan and I were lying in bed and all of a sudden we both got really creeped out. We could just sense this evil presence. It wasn't anything physical—no lights flickered and no inanimate objects got inexplicably moved—but there was this sense that there was evil around us.

We turned on all the lights and prayed in each room of the house. We used Jesus' name a lot. I believe there is a lot of power in his name to triumph over evil. The demons in demon-possessed people of the gospels sure feared him. We felt the presence strongest right under the attic door. So we slept in a downstairs bedroom that night, with all the lights on.

I don't know if someone who had stayed in that house prior to us had done some kind of evil, pagan practice. But it's quite possible. Satan certainly welcomes invitations into our lives, and that's why I don't think evil/occult things are things to mess with.

I know that among Christians, there are a lot of differing views on Halloween. I don't claim to have all the right answers, but having thought through my own experiences and how I understand the Bible, these are the conclusions I've reached.