An enemy has infected my personal soul!

An enemy has infected my personal soul!

A man sowed good seed in his field; but while men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away.  So, when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also.  And the servants said to the man, “Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field?  How then has it weeds?”  He said to them, “an enemy has done this.”   (excerpted Mt. 13: 24-28)

This is a most familiar story that we probably heard as young children, but it goes a little deeper than the obvious scenario of sin in the world at large.  Sin affects each one personally in such a way that our eternal soul is always at risk unless we are alert to the signs that confront us.   

One day I was going fishing and met up with Jesus who asked me if I wanted to fish in my own special lake.  Of course I responded with, “certainly and where is this lake located?”  Jesus said, “follow me.”  So we began to make our way through the brush and soon came to a clearing which revealed a most pleasing body of water.  With a beautiful blue sky above and water that looked so pure I wanted to just admire what was mine and not share it with anyone else.  So, I asked the Lord, “this is really mine and no one else can fish here?”  “Yes” he said, “and everything that is in this lake belongs to you because you are the exclusive owner of what you see.”  Then Jesus told me to take my rod and cast out into the lake and see what I could catch.  I cast my line with a lure and waited for only a couple of minutes until I connected with something.  Whatever was on the line wasn’t too large and reeling the line back appeared to be easy.  But, as the line came out of the water my eyes were stunned at what I saw.  I looked at it for a moment and asked Jesus what it was.  He said, “don’t you know?”  “This is your lake and that belongs to you.”  I replied that it was a dirty looking object and looked like lust.    Jesus said, “throw it away since it will clutter your beautiful lake.”  Then he told me to cast the line a little further and wait to see what I might find in deeper water.  A second time I cast the line out and felt something pulling on the line.  This was a little more difficult so I used a little more muscle in reeling this in.  As it came out of the water my heart dropped as I recognized this as pornography and sexual enticements that were alluring to me.  I began to cry and couldn’t believe that this was part of something I couldn’t let go of.  Jesus said to pull it out and dump it far away since it too was taking up room in my beautiful lake.  Finally the Lord directed me to cast out to the very center and deep portion of my lake where the largest find remains submerged.  I cast the line as far as possible and once in the lake something began pulling as if it wanted to remain buried deep in the recesses of my own private lake.  By myself I couldn’t pull whatever was on the line and Jesus told me that this item could not be brought out by my own strength.  He got on the rod with me and as we reeled in the large and very heavy item I fell down in sadness and regret.  This was the ugliest of all the junk that was cluttering my wonderful lake.  It was Pride!  How, I asked could this get into my beautiful lake?  Jesus said, “Don’t you know, this is your lake and everything in it belongs to you, unless you wish to clean it up and make this beautiful gift clean and pure again.”  

Pride is the worst of all sins since it can be the most enticing and is enough to put the soul (our lake) in jeopardy unless Jesus is called upon to help us clean up the beautiful soul God gave to each of us.  

Question that is perplexing and leaves us wondering how our personal field/lake, which is our soul, can become filled with so much junk and we have a difficult time recognizing the debris.  It takes a lot of searching and most times requires a perfect confession to clean the deepest portion of our lake/field.