Cancer


This week I was with my mom for her MOHS surgery to remove some skin cancer.

She had noticed a tiny little spot where, whenever she washed her face, it would bleed.  She wrote it off as being something that was happening because of the new blood thinners she was on - but when week after week that same little spot bled - she finally decided to have it checked out.

When we went in, they took a fine point sharpie and drew a small circle around the spot.  The circle was no bigger than a piece of himalayan sea salt.  However, when the doctor came to cut the cancer out - he cut a much bigger piece, and after examining it under the microscope, he had to make the cut even wider and deeper because apparently, the cancer had grown "tentacles"...

I thought about that spot, and how it reminds me of sin.

I think very few people are "born bad".  Instead, I believe lives that are ruined by sin are ruined, bit by bit, choice by choice.

Did you ever see any of the show "Breaking Bad?"  In it, Brian Cranston played Walter White, a high school chemistry teacher who was diagnosed with late stage cancer.  In debt, and filled with love for his family and a desire that they not be destitute when he died, he decided to turn his chemical skills into manufacturing crystal meth.

Over the next five seasons we watch Walter's character devolve into the biggest, baddest criminal around, when the "tentacles" of that first choice spread.

As Christians we need to be on guard against the cancer of sin in our lives by making "good" choices.  Ones where we continue to honor and not to reject God.  

The Bible puts it this way: "Watch out that you do not lose what we have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully." - 1 John 2:8

Perhaps Walter thought he was originally making a "good" choice, one that would serve his family...but Psalm 19:12-13 reminds us, "None of us can see our own errors; deliver me, Lord from hidden faults!  Keep me safe, also, from willful sins; don't let them rule over me.  Then I shall be perfect and free from the evil of sin." (GNT)

And finally, Psalm 25:4 says, "Show me your ways, Lord, teach me your paths."

My prayer for us today is that when sin enters our lives, we quickly root it out so it will not grow and spread like the cancer it is.



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