If these past few months were "Wild Winter," then these next few weeks are apparently going to be the sequel - "Soggy Spring." Oh, we might have thought we'd seen the last of those mountains of snow. Wrong again. The weather guys say they're all about to come floating - in melted form - down our rivers and streams. Here we go with floods again. Having lived a long time in a town whose one niche in national newscasts was major flooding, it's a heartache we know all too well.
Weather people all across the country have already begun their oft-repeated warnings: "Turn around, don't drown." In a matter of minutes, an always-safe bridge or water crossing can become a torrent of racing flood water. And a death trap for those who think they can cross as usual. Cars, vans, trucks - and recently an Amish buggy - can be swept away in fatal current.
So keep it coming, weather guys - "Turn around, don't drown."
That's advice some folks wish they had heeded sooner. Morally and spiritually, that is. Few people who have become addicted or adulterous ever expected to get carried away. No one thinks that today's deception, today's "little" compromise of integrity or purity will one day sweep them away in an inescapable flood. Who could guess that a click on a web page, a little flirtation, a lie to get out of a jam would lead to a torrent of expensive consequences. After national headlines exposed the unfaithfulness of her politician husband, his betrayed wife observed, "You can pick your sin. You can't pick your consequences." Man, is that true.
One TV meteorologist said that the reason people die crossing familiar bridges in flood times is a fatal miscalculation: "They overestimate the power of their car, and they underestimate the power of the water."
Let's tweak that just a little to identify what makes even spiritual giants fall farther than they ever dreamed: "They overestimate their power to resist, and they underestimate the power of sin." The inexorable progression of spiritual seduction and disaster goes like this: "Desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death" (James 1:15). Sin always kills. Always. So the Bible sounds the alarm that "if you think you are standing strong, be careful not to fall" (1 Corinthians 10:12 - NLB).
There's probably someone reading this today who's driving very close to the edge of the flood. Flirting with those famous last words, "I can handle it." No, you can't. "Sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it" (Genesis 4:7).
Turn around. Don't drown. Please.