Bowling for sinners

    Ever since I was about 6 years old I have loved bowling.   I can still remember my family going to a bowling alley in Carlyle Illinois to bowl a few games.   I remember it well because it was the first time I ever bowled a STRIKE!   Back then we didn't have gutter-bumpers to keep the ball in the alley either for the kids.   In those days, it was as difficult for the kids as it was for the adults to get the ball all the way down the alley and hit the pins.  That night I bowled a 52 and I kept the score sheet tacked to my bedroom wall to look at for weeks on end.

    Bowling is a strategic game where you try to hit the front pin (#1) in just the right way that that ball knocks enough pins such that they ricochet in a manner that all 10 get knocked down.  If you don't hit that first pin, your are not going to get a strike unless you are very very lucky.   Also strikes are beneficial in bowling because you add the next 2 balls you bowl to the current frame you just got a strike in.   So if you bowl 2 more strikes after this one (referred to as a "turkey" ...don't ask me why... it just is), you get to add 20 more points to the 10 you got for this frame and that adds 30 points.  Call it the compounding effect.

    Satan uses this same compounding approach in our lives as well.  Our sins have a tendency to replicate and increase in scope those they impact.   A one-night affair for example can lead to divorce, divorce can ruin the children's lives and cause them to hate their father (or mother) and lead to drug abuse, teen pregnancy and even suicide.   Children of divorce also are more likely to stop going to church (if they did before) as they associate their father being a hypocrite and a phoney-baloney christian which they want nothing to be a part of.   Once this is accomplished it may be MANY generations until that family ever has a member darken the doorway of a church ever again.

     The effect of the one sin is thereby multiplied many times over.   This is why parents need to be so careful.  They are not just looking out for themselves but also their children and grandchildren as well.  What caused me to write this blog was I just read a story of a Lutheran pastor in Michigan who is married and has 5 children was found to have a profile on a dating website and had apparently several hookups.  How did this happen?   My guess is started by him using porn, but that is just my guess.   For whatever the cause, his sin has tragically destroyed not only his marriage and his children but also untold hundreds of his members.   Many congregations that go through such an upheaval will lose members by the droves and might end up closing their doors for good.

     I call this Satan's "bowling for sinners" and it's extremely effective. 

     I can recall one time when I was faced with a similar situation.   It was late at night (10:30 or so) and everyone else was in bed (my kids were 6 & 7 at the time) and I needed to go do some grocery shopping because we had nothing to make for their lunches the next morning.   I went to a store called Food Source and did my shopping.   When I reached the checkout counter I saw a very beautiful blonde woman checking out in front of me.  Because Food Source allowed 2 people to bag their food in parallel at the same time, we were both bagging our food and exchanged simple pleasantries ("Hi. Nice night").   Since I had less groceries I finished first and exited the store.  As I pushed my cart out to the car I could hear a cart coming up quickly behind me and noticed it was her running with her cart.  She said, "Oh this is nice! I am parked right next to you!".  I put my bags in the car and was intrigued as to what she wanted (I won't lie).   As I was about to pull out she tapped on my window.  After I rolled down my window she asked if I could wait a minute and so I did as she put her cart away.   She then came back and said "I would be really happy if you followed me home.  Hope to see you later!" and with that she got into her car and drove slowly off waiting for me to catch up to her.   As I pulled my car out of my parking space a simple thought came to me:

Nothing GOOD can come from this

     And with that as she exited the parking lot, she turned right and I turned left and I never saw her again.   I don't know what she had in mind.  Maybe it was sex.  Maybe it was all a joke.  Maybe she had a bet with a friend and I was a way to win it.  Maybe she was nuts. I really don't know.   I think that in that moment God spoke to me in those few words inserted into my brain.  Like Joseph  confronted with Potifer's wife asking him to lay with her and him saying "How can I do this and sin against God!" and then running out of the house half naked.   That is how I felt.   Yes, to some of you it would have been better if I had said that suddenly I saw the face of my wife and kids flashing before my eyes or something of that line that made me change coarse but it wasn't.   This isn't a scene from a Hollywood movie and frankly, I don't think men's brains are built that way.   Robin Williams once put it this way when talking to Johnny Carson: 

"God gave man a brain and a penis but only enough blood to run one of them at a time"

     That is how I always feel when I see men destroyed by their decisions they make.  Take for
example Tiger Woods.   The man had everything you could want.  Fame (everyone knows his name).  Fortune (worth millions).  Great wife (a super model).   Now, he's lost it all.  His golf game crumbled (hasn't won a major tournament in years), his wife left him with the kids, he became the butt of late night comics and he lost all his TV/magazine advertising endorsements.    All this because he wanted to spend a few minutes with women who, in my opinion, were nothing more than discount prostitutes. 

     I often pray to God that I never do anything that would destroy my marriage or my kids faith in Him.   I know how easily it can happen today as marriage is held in such low esteem these days among people and so few care if a man has a wedding ring on or not (and for some women it can actually serve as a dinner bell).   I don't want to be pin #1 in Satan's sights with my wife, kids and future grandchildren following close behind. It is for this reason these 10 words in the Lord's Prayer mean so very much to me every time I say them.

"Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil!"

    Let me be very clear here.  I am not saying that I never sin.  I do.  I sin hundreds of times a day.  Just ask my wife and she will tell you that the last thing I am is a saint.  What I pray is that I never commit a sin so grievous that would harm my family or their faith beyond repair.

    That "strike" I could never live with.