HAZARDOUS CONDITIONS...

So a couple of nights ago I'm driving on the freeway. It's a cold night. It's snowing, and the road is slippery. I can feel it in the way my car is handling. I'm driving cautiously and staying focused. I'm on a dead straight section of the route...doing no more than 60mph...my foot is light on the accelerator...my hands steady on the wheel. It makes no difference whatsoever. My car develops a mind of it's own, begins to slide uncontrollably on the freeway, and in the end sends me spinning off the asphalt onto the median separating the lanes of traffic. And there I find myself...totally stuck...my vehicle unresponsive in conditions it was not engineered to be effective in. What follows is a 3 hour adventure getting towed out of there at no insignificant expense and eventually making it back home. So, I get to thinking...

How many times are my best intentions at living a honorable and moral life compromised by positioning myself in conditions or an atmosphere that are always going to be dangerous? If I keep counsel with the wicked...if I refuse to keep my eyes off vile things...if I maintain a practice of alienating myself from the transforming presence of God...then no attempt at subsequent integrity will provide me with any sustainable sense of progress or success. In fact...the dangers are invited and come with the territory. Perhaps my intentions and efforts at integrity would best be served when the overall climate of my life is surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus. This means that I choose Him in the broad decisions that affect how I spend my time and who or what I allow myself to be influenced by, along with the ways I negotiate specific temptations as they arise.

Careful driving does little to safeguard my life when I willfully venture out in hazardous conditions.