It had purple blossoms.
That thing wasn't hiding behind the house looking like the villain in the story. It was four feet of confidence with flowers on top. From a distance, it looked like something we'd picked out at the nursery and paid good money for. My daughter didn't water it because she was fooled by it, exactly. She watered it because nothing about it said weed. It had done what weeds do when they're allowed to get established.
It had dressed for the part.
(Years later, looking at pictures, I finally identified it: a plumeless thistle. Invasive, stubborn, capable of six feet if you let it, and crowned with those purple blooms, a weed so committed to the costume that half its identification photos could pass for something from a florist. Here's my favorite part: it sits on Minnesota's noxious weed list, the kind property owners are legally required to control. My little girl was faithfully watering a plant the State of Minnesota required me to kill. If you want a better picture of how sin works in a life, I can't draw you one.)
And I've come to believe that's the enemy's whole playbook. He almost never makes sin look like sin. He doesn't show up in your life with horns and a pitchfork, offering you bitterness by name. He just changes the label.
Pride becomes confidence.
Greed becomes success.
Gossip becomes concern. ("I'm only telling you this so you can pray for them.")
Worry becomes responsibility.
Escape becomes "I've earned this."
And before we know it, we're not just tolerating the very thing that's stealing life from us. We're watering it. In public. And people are applauding us for it.
Paul says it plainly: "Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light" (2 Corinthians 11:14). And the writer of Hebrews warns us about "the deceitfulness of sin" (Hebrews 3:13), not the ugliness of sin. The deceitfulness. Sin that looked ugly never grew tall in anybody's garden. It's the sin that looks like a flower — that looks like a virtue — that gets watered every day.
So, what are you watering this week?
This is an excerpt from my book, What Are You Watering?, coming soon.