The Audacity of Sin

I remember being a little boy and one day going into a store with my mom. We had a busy day and my mom was going to get something quick for dinner. While in the check-out line, the grape "Hubba Bubba" gum was calling out to me. I absolutely LOVED grape gum…still do…it smelled SO GOOD! I looked at my mom with my incredibly well practiced puppy-eyes and asked her for a pack, fully believing my request would be considered and my wish granted. After all, I was a cute little kid and life was about my pleasure, right?

Now I don’t really know what came over my mom, but she quickly answered with a simple “NO”. It wasn’t like she considered it or spent time to really understand my needs or feelings. She just simply gave me a quick negative retort!

I stood there in line behind her; anger and greed getting the best of me. I realized quickly that she was not paying attention to me; neither was anyone else in the line. I quickly reached out my hand, grabbed a pack of the unbelievable, extraordinary smelling, wonderful tasting gum and stuck it in my jacket pocket.

Right after completing my dirty deed, I remember my mom looking back at me and smiling. I returned her smile with a phony, adoring gaze and knew I had gotten away with it.

We finished checking out, took the groceries to the car. Now I am not exactly sure how old I was, but for some reason I sat in the back seat. Now the reason I remember this is because this is where the story takes a negative turn – at lest for me it did.

You see, most kids would have been smart enough to hold steady until they got home, head to the backyard shed, and chew the amazing tasting gum all by themselves. But instead I was about to learn a lesson about “The audacity of sin”! Sitting there in the back seat, I slowly reached into my pocket, pulled out the gum, and quietly unwrapped it. The sweet smelling aroma of grape goodness filled the car faster than I could have ever imagined. As I sat there silently enjoying the wonderful scent, I peacefully took out one small piece of gum and put it in my mouth. As the gum hit my tongue I began to close my eyes in the beautiful, blissful wonderfulness of the moment…but my moment was hastily interrupted with the harsh braking of the car as my mom swerved to the side of the road.

As I raised my hands to brace myself against the seat in front of me, my mom somehow pulled the car to the side of the road while at the same time completely turning to the back seat with her entire body and grabbing the pack of gum. With the other hand, which I definitely knew should have been on that steering wheel which was not positioned behind her back, she pulled the oh-so-slightly chewed gum from my mouth.

Now here is where my mom really messed up. You see, we had an entire family waiting on dinner at home. But instead of taking responsibility and going home to feed the family like any reasonable adult should have, my mom turned the car around and drove back to the store. She made me go back into that dreadful store, all by myself, and give the gum back, say I was sorry, and pay for it. It was very inconsiderate of her seeing that some of my siblings could have starved. I took in the now opened pack of gum, apologized, took my verbal beating and hostile threatening made by the store owner, and made my way back to the car.

Somehow all of my siblings made it. Even my dad survived the long ride home we had to make from the store. You see, I am almost positive my mom drove around for at least 15 hours before going home…at least it felt like it. Unfortunately I was too young to know for sure. But what I do know is I am pretty sure I never was with my mom in the car, at home, on a walk, in the park, in a tree, or on a camel-ride, where there was silence for that long. It seemed an eternity.

But in those moments I learned something I would never forget. Sin has a way of allowing its owner, in this case me, to believe that they have everything around them under control. Somehow it brings them to a point of belief that they can get away with it…almost that it protects them. The deeper they get into it, the more they have “audacity” to believe they can stay in it without more compromise or consequence. The unfortunate reality is that the longer they with stick with it…it being sin…the more compromise they have to make and the harder the consequences.

Romans says, “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.”

Sometimes the hardest thing in our lives is to rid ourselves of the sin that we believe we are hiding. The funny thing is that usually the sin has already exposed itself and we are too foolish to realize its aroma has already filled our lives, or at least the car, with its stench!