That speck hurts

Nate's eye was red and watery the other night, and before we went to bed he asked me a couple of times to look and see if anything was in it.

Other than the spidery red capillaries creeping across the inflamed eye, there was nothing to be seen.

The next day, his eye still hurt so I suggested he made an appointment at the eye doctor.

While there, the doctor also didn't see anything, so he dyed the eye. Every time Nate blinked, a line showed up across the dye, which made the doctor question what was causing it. He rolled Nate's upper eyelid back and found a small splinter was embedded in the eyelid, so every time he blinked it was scratching his cornea.

The doctor pulled the speck out, and Nate was 100 percent better. He came home and gave a sigh of relief that the pain and irritation was gone.

It was just a little speck, which came from Nate not following the rules and wearing protective eye gear on his eyes while doing a woodworking project. That little speck didn't cause him a lot of pain, but it didn't feel good and it caused his eye to swell and water to the point where it was hard to see.

Little things matter. When we have a little sin in our life, it causes some pain and irritation. It might even cause situations to swell, and we can't see clearly because of it. If we go see the great doctor, God, and get it taken out of our lives, we can get back to a peaceful life.

If we let it go though, it will continue to scratch and make matters worse. If Nate had let the splinter go, it would have continued to scratch his eye and could have gotten infected, causing possibly permanent damage. Like sin, if left untouched, the problem will grow and grow.

Plus, the speck in Nate's eye was easy to take care of when it was little. Had the problem grown, it would have taken much more drastic measures than tweezers and some eye drops to cure. When sin is little, the damages and the cure are much simpler. Don't let it fester.