Threats

Last week, my wife and I were in the wilderness. Really, we were. On vacation. The wilderness is full of wildlife. One afternoon, I took a hike by myself and came up on some bear cubs. I froze until I could find where Mama Bear was. And once I saw her, I made haste in another direction.

Throughout our vacation, we saw lots of signs about bears. Watch for them, do not feed them, use the special trash receptacles, secure your food, etc. And if we hadn't been careful, we could have encountered big problems.

But now, looking back, the only damage we experienced was from the mice—a creature no one warned us about.

A lot of churches are like this—alerting people to the consequences of 'the big sins'. And if the warnings aren't heeded, there can be terrible consequences. But in my experience, we don't talk enough about those little transgressions, those subtle compromises of integrity and character. Collectively, these do the most damage.