Deniese was the first to notice it. But she was waiting for it, too.

It just didn't occur to me what she was talking about when she pointed out that our car had this yellow mud splashed on it. At least it looked like mud. There was this stuff on the back panel of the car, about where the bumper starts, and it was in that jagged line from drying there. It really did look like I had driven the car through the mud, and splashed some yuk on it, but as far as I knew the car had never left the road. Hmmmm...

I went to work the next day and noticed that indeed ALL the cars in the parking lot had this funny stuff on them. especially (so it looked) those that had been driven in the rain that we had so much of last week. I would never have noticed except now my wife's comment had me interested, at least enough to give it a second look.

I still didn't grasp what was going on (I'm a little slow) but by Thursday there was no mistaking the golden yellow dust that was all over the hood, windshield, etc. Looking closer. I could see it bright yellow on the edges of all the remaining rain puddles, and even floating in the air. The evil pollen that Deniese had been watching for had returned.

The pollen doesn't bother me much, which is kind of a shock considering how many allergies I have to everything else. However, it does a number on Deniese. At about this time every year she gets sick from it, and because of that she looks for it. Talking about it when we were out driving the other night, I knew right away the idea of using it for a bulletin had "settled on me"

After all, it's so much like sin can be! Sin can take many forms, and sometimes it's very subtle in how it works on us. First off; sin makes you very sick but you might not be aware of the cause at all. That doesn't mean it's not there! As you come to a better bible truth understanding, that pollen becomes more and more visible. At first you can only see it when it's concentrated, kind of like when you realize a lie is wrong but only when it causes someone to be hurt. You don't at first see that ALL lies are bad, just that there are some that are more obviously wrong. Especially when someone points it out to you, like my wife did when she mentioned the pollen on our car caked on as mud.

But I still didn't get it, and that's how people are with sin too. They understand it's wrong but they don't always see WHY it's bad for you. I mean, what does yellow yuk on the back of my car have to do with the watering eyes and coughing that Deniese does? It's not like she's peeling the stuff off and eating it!

But if we're really interested in God's word, then likely it's interesting enough to take a second look. Suddenly we see that is not only a lie "wrong'' because the bible says so; but it is often linked to other bad things. As we read though the bible, the sin starts to become very obvious to us, in fact like the pollen that collects on the windshield it can be hard to see the good that's there when so much sin is blocking the view! All of a sudden we see it everywhere we look! Things that we used to think nothing of before, such as our dress or our language; we see that there needs to be improvements!

Some folks get sicker from sin than others; which is too bad in a backwards way. In Deniese's case, she watches for the pollen, expects it, and does something about it before it makes her sick like it did in the past. When we have a weakness to sin, isn't that really how we should deal with it, too? Think about it!

Randy