The bite of a snake

Today, I was watching Animal Planet and they were talking about the venom and bites that snakes have. While I had known that a snake can bite you after it’s head has been severed, I never knew that it could be up to hours afterward that it could still cause you death. While the toxicity may lessen after the snake dies, it still has the power to kill you.
So if you see a severed snake head laying on the ground, don’t pick it up!
This random thought has been going around in my mind since I heard it.
But, it reminded me of something else. The toxicity of sin.
We tend to think that once we did ‘something’ it’s done. It’s in the past and can’t harm us now. How wrong can we be!
I was struck by this when I was watching Push Girls (a show that follows four women who are paralyzed). One of the women who was attempting to get pregnant was worried that an abortion she had had in the past, might be causing some of the problems that she was facing now. Something that she had done years ago was affecting her now.
People who have misdemeanors in their past, those infractions still haunt them when they are looking for jobs and have to go through background checks. Sometimes they were stupid mistakes but they still follow them, no matter how much they have changed today.
Sin has this insidious power that quietly waits until you think it is over and forgotten, then it rears it’s head to bite you again.
Even seemingly little sins have the power to cause great harm later on. A whispered mocking word can come back to haunt you, a cheating kiss can ruin a strong relationship, an insensitive action can damage a friendship. Little sins have great venom.
Sometimes big sins can seem easier to deal with because they are out there and you have to work through it. You can see the damage quickly. They are like the big old pythons that you might see coming but still have the ability to crush you.
What we might consider insignificant sins can be much like the fast striking rattlesnakes, they give small signs of danger then sinks their dangerous fangs into our flesh. Some might take hours while others only minutes to bring us to death’s door.
A snake’s head can still bite and kill you hours after it has died.
What can my sins do to harm me years after I have committed them?
What about yours?

Galatians 6:6-7 Let the one who is taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches. Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.