Do you ever feel as if your rise in:

maturity

job advancement

knowledge

getting to know and be known in your church or your community….

is a gradual incline?

But

If some area of your life is in decline, it’s usually not a steep descent.

It’s more of a corkscrew.

I mean, it’s a series of slightly down-turned twists that take you slowly to the bottom.

One skewed decision leads to another.

It may be months. Or even years.

But one day you wake up and you’re covered in muck at the bottom of a murky lake.

Often, we ask ourselves, “how did I get here?”

Kind of like losing something. You have to backtrack, step by step, to remember where you lost your keys, or your glasses.

Oh yeah, I remember how it happened with me. I was in college, far away from my church, my Christian friends. The lure of forbidden activities was far more interesting back in those days than choosing to spend my time worshiping God. My descent was gradual. With each unwise decision, I spiraled downward.

And because I’d already compromised my faith, it was easy to:

• Not speak out at the workplace about something immoral.
• And then there was the time I…. (I’ll leave this one empty).
• I didn’t want to make waves, or make people uncomfortable, or call attention to myself as a believer in a mostly non-believing educational institution.

Each time I compromised my faith, I descended, perhaps, one more twist of the corkscrew.

For if I’m not aggressively pursuing righteousness, then the pull of sin, like quicksand, draws me consistently downward.

To this day, the experiences of my college days remain a powerful warning.

Call it a corkscrew, a spiral staircase, a vortex.

But the effect is the same.

Down. down. down.

“Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.” (Eph. 5:15-17 NIV Bible)