The name of Christian's tiger from yesterday's blog. The pet he hated to love and loved to hate. That thing within him, the longing and desire he knew he should not have, but yet there it remained.
Sin.
Such a simple word. So easy to say, but oh-so-hard to name in our own lives. We point out the obvious ones, sometimes in ourselves and more often in others, but deep inside many, if not most, and indeed if not all of us have our own tiger we desperately fear for the world to see.
For we are, of course, Christian. Or at least I am.
Little did Christian know . . .
And by that I mean, little do we know, how dangerous our tigers are. We are not zookeepers. We are not equipped to handle dangerous game in close quarters. We do not have the facilities to keep such wild beasts restrained. We are not lion tamers--but even if we were, there is no such thing as a tame tiger. One little slip, one mistake, and they will turn.
Little does Christian know how likely, indeed how unavoidable it is that his tiger will one day turn on him. Those sins, those deep, dark desires we know we shouldn't have, will devour us. They will take our lives, be it our marriage, our job, our friendships, or even our relationship with God.
All it takes is one little slip, and we are not experts. We are not, and cannot be, competent to deal with such danger.
There is only one Master over sin.
That, of course, is Jesus Christ. Only He has ever walked side by side with sin, and survived unscathed. Only He has been perfect. Only He can truly master sin.
We are slaves. As even Paul says in Romans 6, we can be slaves to sin or slaves to God, but not both. You can only have one master; it will either be this world and sin, or it will be God. You either try (and fail) to deal with your own tigers, or you give them over to the One who knows what He's doing.
The only question is, are you willing to get eaten?
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