When you walk into my living room, chances are the first thing that you will see is a large chair, commonly called a chair and a half. It’s overstuffed, very comfortable and even has a matching ottoman so that you can put up your feet. If you get cold, lift the lid of the ottoman to select one of many blankets including a Snuggie, whose appeal I fail to understand. (But Victoria wanted one, so her friend, Megan Landry, gave her one for her birthday.)

Getting into the chair? Easy. Just plop down. Getting out of it? Well, that’s a little trickier. At least for me. It’s takes more strength to get out of the chair than to get into it. Or if someone’s passing by, I grab their hand and rely on their strength to lift me.

As I sat in that chair this morning, I thought of the similarities between that chair and sin. So tempting, so easy to sink into, so difficult to rise from. Then the words of a sermon that I heard over 25 years ago by Carl Delatte began to float through my mind. “Sin will take you farther than you wanted to go, keep you there longer than you wanted to stay and cost you more than you were willing to pay.”

For those reasons, I pray for the strength to avoid sin today. It’s so easy to write these words now

when the house is quiet, and no one has yet ruffled my feathers. I just hope that I remember them a

little later. I like to think that I act like Jesus, then one of the kids says something, and I realize that I don’t always react like He would. Or I see something on the Home and Garden channel, and suddenly I’m no longer satisfied with what I have and whine about wanting another house. And will I really put away the Christmas decorations today or just sit down and finish off the fudge? Okay, so maybe that wouldn’t be a sin; it just breaks my New Year’s resolution.

Lying? Coveting? Stealing? Gluttony? Adultery? Although the opportunities to sin are many, I Corinthians 10:13 reminds me, “The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, He will show you a way out so that you can endure.”

The good news is that even when we choose to fall into it, there is always a way out of sin. Maybe we can’t get out of it with our own strength, but Jesus is always there, ready to lend His hand. His nail-scarred hand.

Ronny may be reached at rmichel@rtconline.com.