Ambient Sin

You're working at an airport. You throw bags into the luggage carrier and bus them into and out of different flights. Extremely loud sounds of planes taking off and landing blast from every angle. Lunchtime comes around and you walk into the employee lounge, but you can barely hear the conversations of your coworkers. The problem? You just exited an area with a high degree of AMBIENT NOISE, and it has desensitized you to the voices speaking in your immediate vicinity.

You're in a bright room. Light is all around you. Suddenly you walk outside and it's night-time. You can't see a thing; your eyes must adjust. The problem is the room you just exited had too much ambient lighting.

Ambient noise. Ambient lighting. The noise & the light in your immediate environment. You get used to them, and forget that they're even there. If you have them close to you long enough, they desensitize you to softer voices and dimmer lights around you. Stay around the noise long enough, and you could permanently damage your ability to hear quiet sounds.

In this blog, I propose a similar phenomenon occurs, only not with ambient light & ambient sound. It occurs with ambient sin.

Everyday Sin

Ambient sins. The sins all around us. The sins we encounter in our daily lives. The sins in our immediate environment. You get used to them, and forget that they're even there. If you have them close to you long enough, they desensitize you to them. They stop seeming so bad.

These fall into many categories.

Ambient sins are happening in the line at the coffee shop and at the lunch counter. We hear profanities and curse words. Risqué conversations and innuendos pepper the talk of some individuals. You feel dirty hearing them, but stay around hearing them long enough and you'll grow tolerant of them. You'll get used to it. You'll become desensitized, and forget it's even there. It will stop seeming so bad.

Ambient sins are there in line at the grocery store, where along the magazine racks are bikini-clad models sprayed across the cover pages. They are on the college campuses and youth-hangouts of the world where young ladies are pressured to only minimally cover their bodies. See enough skin and revealing clothes around you and you become desensitized. You'll eventually forget how immodest they are dressed.

What to do?

How do I stay sensitized to ambient sin around me? The same way you would with ambient light or ambient noise. If you regularly place yourself in a quiet room, your will not lose the ability to hear those quiet sounds. And you'll realize how loud the ambient noise is elsewhere.

If you walk into a dimly lit room, you will eventually realize how bright the other places are. How much ambient lighting they have.

Similarly, the key to maintaining your sensitivity to immoral behaviors and ambient sin is to place yourself in circumstances where you are NOT around them. Some type of place where these sins of the flesh will NOT happen. Somewhere safe. A location where immodest dress and inappropriate speech are discouraged.

Where is such a place? It's very simple: The Church!

This is one of the reasons why church attendance is so important. You are reminded of the true way of life. You walk into the world on Monday and realize that you are in a place of immoral living.

Without those Sundays and midweek services with the people of God, would you become desensitized to immorality? Would you forget how bad profanity and indecency really are?

Can I really forget the ambient sins around me? I hope I never do. I'll keep going to church. Yes, I need the worship & the preaching & the prayers & the fellowship. But I also need the reminder that there is a better way of living.