Curiosity killed the cat

I figure that most cultural sayings became sayings because there was a lot of experience bearing them out:

“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” “The early bird gets the worm.” “A stitch in time saves nine.”

I would like to tell you how curiosity kills the cat. I am not talking about the innocent and God-given curiosity of an infant that is necessary to get him to attempt to crawl from the bassinet to the large teddy bear, thus learning to navigate in the world. I am talking about not-so-innocent, Enemy-given curiosity.

The most infamous example, of course, is our first mother’s attraction to a tree that God solemnly said to leave alone. Eve went the wrong way before she actually took a bite. Her defection began when she allowed a certain train of thought to play in her mind that should have been nipped in the bud, the Word of God being enough to curtail mental dalliance in that area. When Eve began flirting with the idea of what it would be like to sidestep God’s commands, she was already stepping over the line.

Curiosity is a lot like smoking—you think you have a handle on it, and then you find out it has a handle on you. I was curious about something regarding my husband’s past. I knew it probably was not a healthy or a terribly godly preoccupation. But on the other hand, neither was there any explicit biblical prohibition against it, to my knowledge, and so I asked.

What I found was that the answer to one question led to another question, and another. I also discovered that the answers did not produce satisfaction and contentment but an even greater craving—almost a bondage.

One day Eve’s son Cain was thinking about what it would be like to get rid of his brother, and God said something interesting:

“… sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it” (Genesis 4:7).

Beware of wanton curiosity, brothers and sisters. Your mind belongs to God. The reason curiosity killed the cat is this:

“Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?” (Romans 6:16)