Crumble

Crumble…

Casting Crowns has a song out right now—Slow Fade. The chorus goes like this:

It's a slow fade when you give yourself away
It's a slow fade when black and white have turned to gray
Thoughts invade, choices are made, a price will be paid
When you give yourself away
People never crumble in a day
It's a slow fade, it's a slow fade

People never crumble in a day… Hmmmm…. How true is that statement?

When I was in about the 7th or 8th grade, we had just moved back to Korea from the States. I was in a new school, and it was ok. I hated middle school, but what girl didn’t? ☺ Anyhow, none of that has to do with this story. It was either spring or early summer—the wet season in Korea. We had been hit by a typhoon, and there was massive flooding all around Seoul.

In Korea, we lived on a compound. No—not the David Koresh/Waco type compound, but a community of missionaries. We just happened to have a wall around our property. I honestly don’t know why—I just know that was the way it was in Korea when I was growing up. So our compound was set up on a hill—we were probably half way up the mountain. (I guess it was a mountain…) There was a wall that separated us from the family who owned the house above our compound.

One night, in the midst of the terrible rain and storm of the typhoon, the wall between their property and our compound gave way—their house fell into our property. I don’t remember it—I was a good sleeper then. But I do remember waking up and finding a strange Korean family in our house. I also remember the scene—there were pots and pans, laundry, and furniture scattered down the side of the hill. All they held dear was washed away.

The family in the living room was so embarrassed. I guess that is just something cultural. They couldn’t control the landslide—it was well beyond their means of control. The wall that had been built 20+ years before had finally crumbled and gave way. It wasn’t an instant thing—it was something that had happened over the course of the life of the wall. One little raindrop didn’t cause the foundation to crack. It was the culmination of thousands of raindrops over the course of years.

I look at my life like that wall. My foundation was built—like the wise man that built his house upon the rock. But as I have lived my life, I have been hit by storms, and by trials… and by poor choices. And each time I have been hit by the storms of life, my wall seems to have gotten a little bit weaker, and a little bit weaker. Until there is a landslide, and I have crumbled.

The song Slow Fade continues:

The journey from your mind to your hands
Is shorter than you're thinking
Be careful if you think you stand
You just might be sinking

The main thing, though, that causes me to crumble is my mind—and the choices I make. “The journey from your mind to your hands is shorter than you’re thinking…” And that is how Satan gets me… He puts a sinful thought into my mind—at first I am shocked by it because that is NOT of God and shut it down before it even hits the soil of my mind. And sometimes, I am shocked, but don’t shut it down immediately. The seed hits the fertile ground of my mind.

And then, Satan tries again… and again… and again… raindrop after raindrop, storm after storm, until I give in and entertain that thought. Not actually to the point of acting on it, but entertaining it. Then the “What if’s…” syndrome sets in. “Well, what if I did that? It’s not as bad as X…” And once the what if’s set in, I am a goner. My wall takes a hit, and Satan chips a little bit out from underneath me. And it starts all over again…

And suddenly—or not so suddenly, really, I start to slip and fall down the side of the mountain until I hit a roadblock, or rock bottom. And I look back up the mountain, and see the laundry of my sin strewn on the ground for everyone to see. And I am embarrassed. But unlike the poor Korean family in our living room that morning, this landslide wasn’t beyond my control—I willingly took each step closer and closer to the edge. And fell. No—tumbled down the mountain. Leaving the evidence of my sin and sinful life scattered behind for all to see.

People never crumble in a day…. No—it is truly a slow fade.