6 Reasons Poison Ivy is Like Sin

1) Neither was in the Garden of Eden.  I haven’t consulted a true theologian on this issue, but I’m pretty sure there was no poison ivy in the Garden of Eden.  Plants that attack people?  There’s no way that came from God.  It must be a result of our fallen world. 

2) Contact with either has consequences.  There are as many reasons God wants us to avoid sin as there are sins.  If you don’t believe poison ivy has consequences, go rub some on your arm.

3) The consequences of both extends to others.  When someone sins, it affects that person, but it also affects the people around him or her.  When someone has an ugly, itchy rash, people around that person are probably going to be listening to whining and/or running out to buy some relief for it.

4) Sometimes both are difficult to spot.  Examining your conscience takes more than a minute.  Sometimes you have to take a close look at your life to see where you’re getting off the narrow path.  Similarly, sometimes you think you’re just running a weedwhacker over regular weeds and find out the next day some of what you sprayed on your leg left an itchy rash you’ll be whining about for the next two weeks.

5) A person can come into contact with either unintentionally but not really unintentionally.  No true accident is a sin.  But we can overestimate our resistance to temptation.  You might think you can eat a cookie without eating ten.  You might think you can chat with a friend without gossiping about another.  And you might think you can get all that poison ivy into a bag wearing gloves and still end up with a rash on both forearms.

6) Attempts to avoid both can appear strange to outsiders.  Our culture mocks Christians for following rules they don’t understand.  People who don’t know what that vine can do will laugh at someone balancing it on the end of a rake trying to get it into a yard bag that keeps tipping over.  Let them laugh.  It can’t dim the joy of getting it into the bag on the tenth try knowing you don’t have to buy more hydrocortisone.  And nothing dims the joy of seeing God face-to-face.