I take classes at the university. So, at least a couple of times a week, I go there, park and walk into the building for my class. Because of my age, I work very hard at not falling down (come on, be honest, if you are entering a mature age). When I walk, I try to notice and avoid uneven terrain to avoid the chance of tripping.
Last semester, on my path into the building, I noticed a sidewalk square had settled away from the one next to it, leaving a potential tripping point. After walking by it several dozen times, you not only notice it but look for it as a landmark on the walk in. There were several such spots between sidewalk squares on the campus, but this one was more severe than the others.
This semester, when I walked up to the building, I noticed the two uneven sidewalk squares had been torn out and repoured, leaving two new level squares. Then, I noticed many other slightly uneven squares had been ground down on one side to make the adjacent squares more even.
“No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar or under a basket, but on a stand, so that those who enter may see the light. Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, but when it is bad, your body is full of darkness. Therefore be careful lest the light in you be darkness. If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright, as when a lamp with its rays gives you light.”” - Luke 11:33-36 ESV
The world shows the same kind of pattern we do. In its sinful nature, the world settles and changes into something different and potentially dangerous, compared to what it was before. I am sure when the sidewalk was originally poured, it was not supposed to settle in an uneven way, creating a potential tripping point, but over time, it did.
People are the same way. If you consume unhealthy content, it will eventually pollute you in ways that may be minor at first, but make you dangerous to yourself or others. You might be able to fix or mitigate the problems with some minor work. Or, you may have to utterly fail so that you can be rebuilt into the functional unit you started as.
Who knew your faith walk could be illustrated by a sidewalk?
