Genesis 13:12, Abram lived in the land of Canaan. Lot lived among the cities of the Jordan River valley, and pitched his tent toward Sodom.
It’s so subtle and insidious. Your walk and relationship with God is tight, but then there’s this tug, this curiosity, this pull… This desire… It’s not a desire for more of God – more purity, holiness, grace; it’s the desire for something, well, something different… Not something outright immoral, mind you. But something else… So you slip just a little… You make a very small, seemingly insignificant decision to negotiate and compromise, just here…
In your mind, that’s it… Decision over… Sometimes the decision is so small and insignificant, you don’t really even think about it… Life goes on… And so do you, but you go on CHANGED a little by a decision that never fully registers on the radar of your life…
Lot’s single decision to “pitch his tent toward Sodom” would ultimately change the direction and outcome of his life… It probably never registered with him as being a life changing, family altering decision, but it radically CHANGED everything about his life…
Ultimately, he moved into Sodom; and somehow Sodom sort of moved into him… He somehow got sucked into the life of that city…
As far as we know, he never made some major lapse in moral judgment… He just fudged a little here and gave in a little there…
The result? A heart that had become so attached to the city that God had to dispatch a couple of angels to literally force he and his family out of the city… A heart that had become so emotionally involved in the city, that even with God’s judgment falling from the sky, his wife completely ignores God’s warning and lovingly and longingly looks back at Sodom and is turned into a pillar of salt… A couple of girls who’s value system has been so distorted by the city, that they actually get their father drunk so that they can sexually seduce him…
Lot’s family was completely destroyed, and the first crack in its destruction started when Lot made a single, small, “insignificant” decision to “pitch his tent toward Sodom.”
Here’s the way the book of James describes the process.
James 1:14-15 (MSG), The temptation to give in to evil comes from us and only us. We have no one to blame but the leering, seducing flare-up of our own lust. 15 Lust gets pregnant, and has a baby: sin! Sin grows up to adulthood, and becomes a real killer.
Wow! That seemingly small flirtation, the temptation to “fudge” a little here or there, may not be that “small” at all…
The best plan?
Proverbs 4:23 (NLT), Above all else, guard your heart, for it affects everything you do.
Guard your heart! Don’t allow even the smallest amount of drift to set in… When you feel your heart start to drift, cast yourself on God… Cling to him… Ask Him to cleanse and purify your motives and desires…
While lot was pitching “his tents toward Sodom,” Abe just hung out in Canaan.
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