By Jon Keehn

Late last week I had the opportunity to go with a short term missions group that we were hosting on their travel/tourist day. These types of days are usually pretty relaxing and full of fun, as was this one. However as we were getting onto one of our boats our driver asked me if I would stand at the front of the boat and help watch out for trash and debris that might be in our path and direct him to turn if we needed to maneuver away from debris. I gladly said yes as this was something that he has asked me to do several other times when we are going on longer boat trips.

As we were about and hour or so into the trip I had the thought that it was funny that we needed someone to look out for debris because most of the things we encountered were small pieces of trash that were of no significance. But then I thought that it was rather interesting that it was the larger pieces of debris that we had to be on the lookout for and how the larger debris would sometimes “hide” itself among the small and insignificant pieces of trash. This means that no matter the size of the trash/debris it was all significant.

At this point I couldn’t help but think about my life as a follower of Jesus and how this was a portrait of how I should look at the sin in my life. There may be some little or small stuff here and there that doesn’t seem important but when I let those small things go unchecked for any amount of time it’s almost a sure thing that some larger piece of debris is going to hide itself among the “insignificant” junk in my life. Even more, as I was standing at the front of the boat diligently on the lookout for debris, I couldn’t just ignore the small stuff because there could have been something bigger hiding amongst it.

You may not be responsible for being on the lookout for other people, but you most definitely are responsible for looking for the junk and sin in your own life. How do you guard yourself from letting the small “stuff” become large pieces of debris that can wreck you? The amazing part is that when it comes the finding the sin in our lives we aren’t alone. Just as I was helping our boat driver watch for debris, we have been promised that the Holy Spirit will help us see our sin so that we may repent and turn away from it back to Jesus. How are you asking the Holy Spirit to help you see and convict you of the sin in your life?