Pool tags

Summer is nearly over and I probably used the pool tags a dozen times. That works out to about $20 a trip to the community watering hole if I'm right. It's always guesswork, of course. At the beginning of the season I have to decide whether I should purchase the cheaper daily pass (but if the kids end up going often, it won't be cheaper in the long run) or the seasonal family pass (more expensive but a one-time dunking, and worth it if the kids are in a swimming mood).

There is one other little rule: Any guest you wish to bring you must pay $5 extra. Herein is the weakness in the system. It would be a very easy thing to get "creative" with tags and switch off from Peter to Pauline. There would even be much specious justification for it: What does it matter which body is occupying a volume of space in the fenced-in park?

This year I told the Lord I wanted to live completely by the rules and to trust Him with that. Though my family hardly frequented the place, I resisted the temptation to pass off one of the kids' tags to my granddaughter when she visited from out of the township, or to my sister during her visit from England. I just kept plunking down $5 on the counter for the attendant, while a perfectly good and unused tag sat on the counter at home.

Just for kicks one day, I asked an off-duty lifeguard sitting near the kiddie pool: "Level with me, do many people lend their tags to guests?" He looked sheepish and said that he had done it himself.

The difference between me this year and last year is that God has shown me something about the spiritual life. I have come to see that even the slightest dishonesty vitiates the soul in some small way. It is not even the size of the lie but the spiritual realm it puts me in. It seems that there are only two possible places to abide in at any given time: God's kingdom of light or the kingdom of darkness. Any untruth, however small and seemingly inconsequential, belongs to the darkness. And because it belongs to the darkness, we unwittingly put ourselves under the sway of the Evil One when we veer into his territory.

The Apostle John wrote to an unnamed lady, "I rejoiced greatly to find some of your children walking in the truth . . ." (2 John 4). Interesting expression. Elsewhere, a proverb, also envisioning life as a path (Proverbs 4:14-27), adds this: "Do not swerve to the right or to the left; turn your foot away from evil" (verse 27). The truth is a land, it is a place, it is a domain where those who walk are free. That's what I want from now on---to walk in the truth. And I expect it will cost more than $5 someday.

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