Rotting potato stench.
It hit me when I looked in the pantry for some crackers to nibble. I hadn’t smelled it a few hours earlier when I grabbed the cereal box. How could such a horrid smell develop so fast?
The truth is that potato was rotten when I ate breakfast. It probably already smelled, but I didn’t notice it. I was too focused or maybe not awake enough. Three hours later I noticed. I recognized that smell. I looked down at the bag of potatoes. They looked fine. I picked up the bag. Buried on the bottom sat a decomposing potato.
The only way to get rid of the smell is to get rid of the offending potato. Once I removed the remaining potatoes from the bag, I threw the putrid potato away. I rinsed any potatoes that had been near the rotten spud. The smelly effects lasted for a while even after all evidence had been destroyed.
Sin can be like rotting potatoes. At first, we may not notice it. We might ignore it, bury it or hide it. All while that hideous spot of sin grows and spoils us. The sin stretches to other areas of our lives. We contaminate others around us. Our stench spreads.
When we allow sin to pollute us, we need to recognize it. We need to notice it. We need to remove it from our lives. Fully remove it. I threw the potato in the trash, but if I hadn’t taken the trash out, the rotten potato would still be spoiling in my house. We have to fully remove the sin. We need to examine whether the sin has spread to other parts of our lives and clean those areas. We need to check whether our sin has infected those around us. We might need to make some amends. We also have to be willing to give ourselves time. Often it takes time for us to be restored – time for the smell to go away.
I don’t want the smell of a rotten potato in my house. Neither do I want my life to smell rotten.
Do you have sin rotting in your life? Is there a foul smell emitting from you? What can you do to purge the stench?
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