Poisoned Arrows

I am so thankful to the Lord that He is revealing my heart's condition to me. It's not pretty and I have been ignoring it way too long! Because I am so entrenched in this sin of self-love and because it has such a strong hold on me I am having a tremendously hard time.

Many people may not understand this. Some may even poo poo my sin and say that I am being too hard on myself. But I know me. And I know the damage the sin does in my own life, and in the lives of my loved ones. No one walks in my shoes but me.

When I was talking to the Father about this the other day the word that came to mind was toxic. This sin of self-love is toxic. It's having (and has had) the effect of a poison. You might know that the word toxic comes from various words that all mean poison. But did you know that it's ultimately derived from words that mean poison for use on arrows? I thought that was quite interesting considering my sin.

Sin is toxic ... like a poisoned arrow. Self-consumption is, of course, toxic for me, but it is also highly toxic to those around me. I am a very visual person and I can see myself in my mind's eye with a quiver of poisoned arrows shooting them all around me. It's haphazard and I'm not really trying to hurt anyone. But I'm also not trying to not hurt anyone. Sometimes I miss (thank God), but many times I get a hit. Of course many of the arrows make their way into me. It makes me sad!

Ephesians 6:16 says

"In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one ... "

That word darts is from the Greek word belos which means a missile, javeline, dart, or arrow. If you're a facebook friend, then you probably know that I have a statement on my page that says "I want to be the kind of woman that when my feet hit the floor each morning, the devil says, 'Oh crap, she's up'." But every time I read that I think that the devil says quite the opposite, something like "Oh good ... she's up ... I can use her to poison those around her again today." I'm not kidding! That's what I think.

I looked at my daughter tonight and thought about this word toxic. I sat there and wondered how I have poisoned my girls with this sin of selfishness. How have I poisoned my husband? How have I poisoned myself? It's a sobering thought for me. I'm not trying to be Debbie Downer. I'm really not. But I have to face this sin, see it for what it is and get it out of my life!!






p.s. archery photo courtesy of michael pollack's flickr