A Word of Encouragement from Elizabeth Rice Handford
My mother was in the attic sorting out boxes, when her expression suddenly became grave. I looked into the box and saw five darling baby mice nestled together. I was charmed. (I was only four years old, and many things charmed me then.) “Oh, Mother, may I have one of those darlings for a pet? Please, Mother, puleeease?”
Her lips tightened. “No! They’re dirty little things. They’d make you sick.” And she promptly disposed of them in the toilet. This was in Texas, back in 1931, long before the identification of the hantavirus that caused the death of Gene Hackman’s wife. I thought the mice were darling. My prairie-bred mother knew they could cause deadly disease.
Can something deadly look enticing? It did to a woman who came to me, hoping to gain my approval for her scheme to abandon her husband and children. She planned to shack up with a man who had left his wife and children.
“Mrs. Handford, can’t you see? We’re in love. Something this beautiful can’t be wrong.”
But it was wrong. It was not beautiful; it was ugly. She had broken the holy vows she made before God to cleave to her husband until parted by death. Her lover had broken his solemn vows to his wife. It was not beautiful. It wasn’t love. It was dirty, disgusting sin.
If we could see the horrible end of such temptations, maybe we wouldn’t find them so attractive. It’s because temptation looks “so cute,” so desirable. A man would not say, “I’m deliberately going to become a drunkard and reduce my family to poverty.” He found euphoria in that morning sip of liquor. A good woman would not suddenly decide to have an affair and wreck her home. It might begin as an innocent flirtation at a neighborhood party. People don’t determine to be obese gluttons. They simply find great pleasure in eating quantities of something that would be healthy in moderation. No one decides to let her personality be warped by bitter, hateful envy of those she feels more successful than she is. No sane person wakes up one morning to decide he’ll hate someone so much he will eventually kill him. The deadly outcome of sin is hidden by its innocent, attractive appearance. Mother would not let me make a pet of a cute and charming, infectious baby mouse. James 1:14-17 (nlt) explains it:
Temptation comes from our own desires,
which entice us and drag us away.
These desires give birth to sinful actions.
And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death.
So don’t be misled, my dear brothers and sisters:
Whatever is good and perfect is a gift
coming down to us from God our Father.
God’s gifts are beautiful and perfect, holy and good, exactly what will bless us. There are no hidden temptations in His generous, life-giving blessings. It’s those seemingly innocuous, sinful desires inside our own hearts that blossom and eventually yield catastrophe.
But notice even then God’s marvelous good and perfect gifts to us, as verse 18 adds,
He chose to give birth to us by giving us His true Word.
And we, out of all creation,
became His prized possession. James 1:18
Yes, there’s grace enough for all of us poor, deluded sinners around the cross of Jesus!