We Need to Remove the Temptation.

August 23, 2023

I’ll give the person credit for doing what they could to dress up the fact that they had a tree growing right where they had a privacy fence.

The problem is that the tree and fence are in conflict.

Given that the fence is a privacy fence, I’d assume someone didn’t want someone else to be able to see into the property protected by the fence. I guess that’s why there’s was quite a bit of effort made to put slats in such a way as to prevent viewing.

But we can see that as the tree grows, it pushes the panels or vertical boards aside to make room. I’m guessing that over time if you wanted to keep the panels vertical, and you wanted to keep them tightly spaced so that you couldn’t see in, you would need to keep replacing them as the tree grew. There may be another option, but I’m not sure what it would be.

It would also look pretty odd (though I’m not sure it would be much more odd than this) that the boards around the tree are always newer than the rest of the fence. But, I suppose that would be the price to pay to keep both the tree and the fence.

I don’t want to sound preachy, but there’s a great life lesson in this.

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We (you and I) often want to live a godly life, obedient and submissive to God’s will for us. We go to trouble of accepting God’s call and the many things that come along with that. We spend time in prayer. Read our Bibles. Attend church and even join small groups to study His word. But we are still people. We’re sinful and we have this one area in our life that we really want to make room for.

It’s like someone who builds a privacy fence where they really want privacy. They go to the trouble of building a fine fence with no gaps that would serve the purpose perfectly, except they also have this tree growing through it. They want privacy plus the tree. We’ve seen how keeping both is a problem.

Maybe the tree just needs to be removed.

It’s the same with sin and our walk with Jesus. Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, talked about the sin of adultery. He compared looking at women with lust as being the same as committing adultery. Here’s His solution.

“Now if your right eye is causing you to sin, tear it out and throw it away from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand is causing you to sin, cut it off and throw it away from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell.” (Matthew 5:29-30, NASB)

Here’s the point. We need to just remove those things in our lives that cause us to sin. We shouldn’t try to figure out a way that they can coexist with us. We know what they are. They are what we watch. They are what we read. They are where we spend our time. They are where we spend our money. We need to remove the temptations.

If you are having trouble with a habitual sin, ask God to help you find ways to remove those things that lead you to it. He’ll do it. You just need to decide if you want Him more, or the sin.