Careful What You’re Near
I melted the bottom of my shoes. Shadows lengthened as dusk fell and the night air grew chilly. I was enjoying talking with friends around a fire pit and inched closer to the heat. Eventually, I propped my feet up on the pavers and let the toasty warmth seep into my toes. When I got up to go inside, I faltered a step. My shoes felt weird and uneven. I examined the soles of my shoes, and lo and behold, the rubber had bubbled, warped, and melted.
I understood the dangers of fire. I knew rubber would melt if I got too close to the fire, so what was I thinking? Yeah, good question. I’m still angry at myself. Those were my favorite shoes, but the warmth felt good. I’d inched closer, then closer. My toes were cold so I put my feet up, but I wasn’t going to do so for very long. Just a bit.
When asked how he went bankrupt, Mike Campbell’s character from the book The Sun Also Rises, famously replies, “Two ways. Gradually and then suddenly.” In science, it’s called creep failure, when a substance or structure faces a slow, gradual stressor that deteriorates it until it hits a critical point and suddenly collapses.
Lot in the Bible experienced creep failure. In Genesis 13, when Lot and Abraham decided to part ways because their sheep herders were quarreling, Lot went right and settled in the Jordan Valley, pitching tents, “near Sodom.” (v12.) Which, in Genesis 13:13, the people there are described as “wicked” and “sinning greatly against the Lord.” By Genesis 19, Lot is living in Sodom when two angels sent from God come to visit him. The depraved people that Lot now lived among had surrounded his house and were banging down his door because they wanted to have sex with the two visitors. The angels told Lot to take his family and leave because they were going to destroy Sodom.
Lot wasn’t careful about what he was near. He might have moved into Sodom gradually, but he fled from it suddenly. The effects of straying into the heart of a wicked city pained Lot even after leaving. He’d been told not to look back as the angels destroyed the city. Lot’s wife didn’t listen. She looked back as if longing for what she was leaving, and she was turned into a pillar of salt. His family’s sinful behavior hadn’t been flushed out. While living in a cave in Zoar, where Lot found refuge, Lot’s two daughters got their father drunk and had sex with him and conceived children with their father because they feared they’d never get married and have children.
1 Corinthians 15:33 states, “Do not be misled: ‘Bad company corrupts good character.’” The lure of sin often starts with a harmless decision like lingering to talk to a co-worker, then going out for a drink (to discuss business, of course). Next thing they know, their marriage falls off a cliff when their spouse discovers the affair. It can be as simple as an old-friend reunion where it won’t hurt to have one drink, but then that turns into two. The gang meets up again to relive the glory days, and someone brings out a stiffer drink. Suddenly, the person’s lost their job and is starting AA classes.
There is an allure to sin. The fire is warm. At first it feels nice, but get too close, and it’s disastrous. We think we can tread that fine line, but be careful. Unbeknownst to us, creep failure sets in, and before you know it, your shoes are on fire.