The poster

There is an area in my house that, if you had a handheld radioactivity detector for spiritual intensity, would start ticking wildly as you approached. It is my daughter's bedroom, and ground zero is a poster on her wall.

One day I had decided to go through all six rooms and dedicate them to God, asking Him to remove any defilement. (This is either madness or the creativity of the Holy Spirit.) I was inspired in part by shame over a wooden key rack in the kitchen that reads, "As for me and my house we will serve the Lord." It has been a lie.

As I lifted my head from a prostrate position, I spotted the poster, a darkly beautiful woodland scene that seems to call to ancient legends and distant flute sounds, and whose colors and mood blend seamlessly into the forest décor of the bedroom. One hardly notices at first the two mythical female faces locked in a kiss, and then, if you look closer still, a trickle of blood leaking from the corner of their mouths.

It was too much of a coincidence to shake-my prayer, the immediate confrontation with the depiction. And I had been telling God recently that I want to learn to obey the Spirit instantly, and not drown out His voice in layers of excuses-and theology. The poster had to go. As surely as Asa's grandmother's Asherah pole (1 Kings 15:13).

But what if it isn't the Spirit? I had a tête-à-tête with my daughter, and all hell broke loose, I do not say this lightly. I sought counsel from two friends: one said the thing must go; the other said I might want to "pick my battles" carefully. Is nothing simple?