Rolling

Some college students decided to build a huge snowball this past week and see how big they could make it. Unfortunately, what seemed like a good idea quickly got out of control. As the snowball continued to grow it became unmanageable and unpredictable. They were no longer able to stop its momentum and eventually it crashed into one of the dorms causing damage to the wall.

That's a very similar path to sin in our lives. We start something thinking that it's a good idea and find out quickly that we are no longer in control. As our choices pile on top of each other the results of our behaviors start to become unmanageable and unpredictable. When we operate on our own we find that we can't seem to slow down the momentum of our consequences and eventually we cause damage to the people around us.

What can we do to make sure we don't see a snowball effect in our sin?

• Recognize that something is starting to build up.
• Get outside help if we don't think we are capable of seeing these potential pitfalls.
• Stop patterns of destructive behavior before they get too big too handle.
• Fall back on the old advice, "Don't start none, won't be none."

These college students didn't intend to do any harm with their snowy experiment. For most of us the same is true in our sinful experimentation. It's best to bring it to halt while it's still within our power to do so.