All At Once

Proverbs 7:22 All at once he followed her like an ox going to the slaughter, like a deer stepping into a noose

Sometimes we let things creep up on us. I watch my grandchildren deal with school projects. Most of the time they don’t let the projects wait until the last night. Their parents have had a good influence on them in this regard.

Deadlines used to be my nemesis. I hated them to the point of getting sick, actually sick, not just ‘sick to get out of trouble’ sick. It took me many years to develop the strategy of pulling the deadlines closer to me on the calendar, rather than pushing them further away. I then gained control of the deadline, making it my deadline.

But things still sneak up on me. My ability to focus on a mundane, routine task has not improved over time. I still put some things off, letting them slide into the future.

As a therapist if often hear people talk about how they just stepped into a sin. They describe it as happening all of a sudden, completely out of nowhere, out of character and disconnected from their history. This is usually their description of the action of their spouse.

But when I talk to the spouse, the sin was not all of a sudden, out of the blue, a one off action. It was not isolated and unique. Rather, it existed in a network of connected small actions and behaviors, most of them hidden from their spouse and others.

Our hidden world is often the most deadly to us spiritually. For this reason having accountability partners is a good thing, a group of people with whom you are transparent. With them you share your struggles and receive encouragement and a good kick in the pants when you need it.

Our text today comes in a section of Proverbs talking about marital unfaithfulness. The ‘wayward woman’ is pictured as someone working and scheming to draw our main character into sexual sin. There is a drawing and a wooing, lying and deception, enticing and encouraging.

And then “all at once” happens. But the “all at once” isn’t isolated from what came before this moment. In fact, the path to “all at once” was very predictable, with many exit signs along the way. Anyone with a little bit of wisdom and self-awareness would have walked away before this moment.

And yet the “all at once” happened.

People fall off cliff edges not because the path is too close, but because they choose to walk down the path. If they stayed on the highway, they wouldn’t have fallen off the cliff. Taking a selfie hanging off the rock outcropping probably didn’t help either.

Destructive paths are fairly easy to identify. Staying off them is as well. It just take a little bit of wisdom and self-awareness to avoid them. Bars are not good places for alcoholics to hang out on Friday nights. Strip clubs are not conducive to sexual fidelity. Amazon is not safe for compulsive shoppers. (Neither is Walmart, Target, Marshalls or any other favored retail space.)

So gain a little wisdom from Proverbs and gain a bit of wisdom and self-awareness. Then you can avoid your personal pitfalls.