Ruts.

Before paved roads, wagon wheels left deep ruts.  When rain dried, ruts pulled wheels into the deep grooves, whether the driver wanted to go in them or not.  Ruts do that.

Stories create ruts in your mind.

Popular stories create the deepest ruts.  Consider: Are there any virgins on sit-coms? Not unless they’re being mocked, right? Everyone else jumps in bed on the first date, or if they abstain it’s because of something funny—poison ivy, maybe—rather than a moral commitment.  The rut in your mind says “EVERYONE has sex on the first date,” and though we know it’s false, we fall into the rut. Other TV ruts: the single man who is great with kids must be a pedophile; the perfect husband and father must be hiding a terrible secret; ‘friends with benefits’ is normal; when a girl has sex with another girl, it is “empowering”; changing genders is “honest” and “brave.”

The book of Proverbs contrasts these voices: There is the voice of wisdom crying in the street: “You naïve ones, you fools, understand wisdom!” 8:5.  And there is the voice of the ‘Forbidden Woman,’ who hunts naïve young men, saying, “Come, let’s drink deeply of love… my husband is on a long journey….” Following wisdom leads to peace, abundance, and joy. Following the adulteress leads to death, and “he who would destroy himself does it.”

When you come to a fork in the road, which rut will pull you in?  The one you have listened to the most. 

The path reinforced by the stories we listen to is the path we are likely to follow. (If you like stories where people do wrong and get away with it, LOOK OUT. You are creating a rut in your mind that is FALSE.  When you do the same, you will NOT get away with it.) 

“Can a man take fire in his bosom and his clothes not be scorched? Can a man walk on hot coals and his feet not be burned?” 6:27-28.

God, fill our minds with Your VOICE OF WISDOM.

ΑΩ