Psalm 38:17 For I am ready to halt, and my sorrow is continually before me.

Then STOP.

Every stop sign is a cautionary tale. They are placed where history says there is real danger. They do not put up stop signs on lonely roads with no cross traffic.

We have been talking about holiness at church, so the issue has been in the forefront of my thoughts for days. We are not through with the subject, it is not as easy as saying just don’t sin. It is and always has been an impossible task to be as holy as God. We blew that before we even knew there was a God. Our view of holiness will always be littered with our past.

Herein lies my point for today. It is the past. The verse above says my sorrows are continually ahead of me. That is a point of view. If you can see that the way you are going leads to sorrows, regret, and hurt, then stop, don’t go there.

When we are feeling empty, sad, lonely, unfulfilled or dozens of other emotions that say to you I need something, then the human tendency is to be recreational. We want to re-create feeling good. Our history of feeling good is a pool that is shallow and painful when we dive headlong into it. We have been there and found it unfulfilling as a life worth leaving and we turned to the Lord for help.

We find ourselves forgetting the pain, because it is pain, and the pleasures of the past, even though they were only momentary and not lasting, still feel like they were good. Most sin does or otherwise we would not have done them in the first place.

My advice here is as temporary as the sin which tempts us. Stop. Look at what lays before you. Is the Lord leading you? Temporary because you will have to do it again tomorrow.

Psalm 39:20 They also that render evil for good are mine adversaries; because I follow the thing that good is.