What’s The Problem?
They were everywhere. At one point, our ant infestation got so severe, my husband, Peter, and I had an ant-killing competition after we put our son to bed. Collectively we killed over 50 ants in one corner within three minutes. We wanted to shrug it off and quip, “It’s ant season,” but there are ant seasons, and then there are ant problems. We had an ant problem.
So, like anyone with an ant problem has done before us, we bought kid-friendly sprays for in the house, and we bought the super deadly stuff for around the house. After we sprayed, ants would come into the house seemingly drunk, and within seconds, they’d be dead. Over time, our ant problem dwindled, and we congratulated ourselves for being responsible, capable homeowners. We resolved the ant problem.
Or we thought we did, anyway. Before we knew it, our ant-less days were gone, and we were infested—again. Peter grumbled something about how the heavy rain was probably giving everyone ant problems. We grit our teeth and went about our lives—trying to ignore the fact that every inanimate object in our home moved a little.
It turned out we weren’t solving the problem, we were just addressing the outcome of that problem. Unbeknownst to us, we had a small, dead tree outside our front window where ants were nesting. When the tree was finally taken down, millions of ants scattered in every direction, but as soon as they hit the sections where we’d sprayed, they died.
How often do I address my sin in the same way? How often do I see the impact sin has and fix the mess it left, rather than fixing my heart—the root of the problem? Too often my battle with sin overwhelms me and I want to scream, “I don’t know what else to do! I guess I’ll just live with the problem because it’s not going away.” Taking care of the root of my sin takes acceptance, time, and work.
Yet how sweet it is to know that for those who trust in Jesus, He serves as that protective barrier around our hearts. Removing the root cause of sin can be messy, hard, and humbling. But if we trust him, he promises that sin will never overrun us because he is protecting us as he corrects our hearts and makes us more like himself.