NO! This is Rotten! - Soup and Soulfood

This is Rotten!

Last week, my husband and I were grocery shopping when he picked out a bag of apples and handed them to me. As I continued down the aisle, I noticed a spreading wet spot on my shirt. I flipped the bag over to find the culprit — a mushy, rotten apple pressed against the bottom. I turned to my husband and said, “NO! This is rotten!.” We swapped them for a fresh bag and moved on.

As you probably know, the longer a rotten apple stays in contact with the others, the more damage it does. Eventually, they all rot.

The very next day, I had a long to-do list staring me down — but there I was, scrolling through my phone in search of the perfect song. Twenty minutes later, I caught myself and said out loud: “No!”

Apples

That’s when I glanced over at the apples sitting in my fruit bowl, and it hit me. If Eve had just said no to the apple in the garden, I might not be struggling with the Apple device in my hand today. And in case you’ve never noticed — there’s a bite taken out of the apple on every Apple product logo. That’s a lot of apple analogies, I know. But the point stands: just say NO!.

We all know how hard it is to break the habits that feed our flesh — and one of the sneakiest today is device addiction. It starts innocently enough. You pick up your phone just to play a praise song on YouTube. Two hours later, you’re still holding it, fingers cramped and neck aching, unable to put it down. You’ve just lost 240 minutes of your life that you can never get back.

And that was just one sitting.

But God…

But God’s Word reminds us in 1 Corinthians 10:13: “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”

That way out? Sometimes it’s as simple as putting the phone down. What if we started looking at these addictions the way I looked at that rotten apple — and said, “No!” — and meant it? God has already made a way. We just have to choose to take it.