Too many Tootsie Rolls

The other day I read a really good Proverbs 31 devotional by Lysa TerKeurst entitled The Slippery Slope. It's about a married woman who fell into a devastating deception that began all because of a little attention paid her by a man she wasn't married to.

It seemed innocent enough at first--just a mild attraction. But one thing led to another as it always does, and before long she was meeting with him in secret. And down the slippery slope she slid.

Lysa writes, "Things being done in secret are an indication of being led by Satan." She talks about how Satan loves to keep us operating in our dark secrets, and about how skilled he is at keeping us blind to what's really going on.

After all, deceiving people is one of the things he does best. And though I'm not married anymore, I definitely get what it's like to be deceived by the wicked one.

I also know all about falling into the trap of too many secrets. A few hours after I read Lysa's devotional, I was sitting in an all-day meeting at work, and there was a bowl of Tootsie Rolls on the table in front of me. I don't even really like Tootsie Rolls (I'd rather splurge on real chocolate), so for the first two hours of the meeting, I did just fine. But then I got bored, and what did I do? I reached for a Tootsie Roll.

Then I got another. And I wrapped the first wrapper up in the second ... you know, to hide that I'd had two Tootsie Rolls. Then I ate another, and wrapped the first two wrappers up inside the third wrapper, just to keep the number private.

And I kept going. And pretty soon, I'd wrapped up so many wrappers inside new wrappers that I ended up with one great big ball of Tootsie Roll wrappers.

Suddenly it was no longer easy to hide that I'd eaten something like nineteen dumb pieces of candy. And I was embarrassed. Ashamed. All I wanted to do was hide the big ball.

And then I thought of the devotion I'd read just that morning, about keeping secrets. I realized that it's not just about hiding the extreme behaviors. I have all sorts of little things I don't want anyone to know about. Eating ... spending ... being lazy ... you know, stuff like that.

So, my lesson in this Tootsie Roll escapade is that if I am doing something that I for any reason feel compelled to hide or keep secret, then I need to question whether I should be doing it or not. So I'm making it my new goal to live a life free of deep, dark secrets.

It's not always about the Tootsie Rolls, as this is one of my less scandalous secrets. But I'm guessing that my new secret-free life will not only help me shed a few extra pounds, but also bring to light many other shameful burdens (big and small) that I tend to carry around. It's strange how freeing the exposure of sin can be. What irony.

Or, maybe it's not so ironic. After all, the light of Jesus has a way of making the prince of darkness look like a fool.