A Lesson from the Bees

"When tempted, no one should say, "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death." James 1:13-15

Last week Angie and I learned a lesson from a BUNCH of bees! Months ago Angie noticed some bees swarming outside her bedroom window. She mentioned it to Victor and to Cirino and they realized that the bees were making a hive. So, they knocked down what they could of the hive, sprayed some and life went on. But, the bees didn't go away. They continued to swarm around the outside of Angie's windows. However, interestingly, even when Angie opened her windows the bees never flew into the house. So, every once in awhile somebody would make a comment about the bees outside Angie's window and how we should probably do something about them, but since they really never caused any problems nothing was done. You know how it is - life is usually made up of running from one urgent thing to another and these "unurgent" things get left to the wayside.


Last week, Victor decided that it was time to get rid of these bees, so he had Cirino come in and check it out. Cirino determined that the hive was actually in the "attic" area above Angie's ceiling and would require removing one of the ceiling panels in Angie's room to remove the hive and the guilty bees. (The ceilings in our second story are panels of plywood screwed to a metal roof structure.)

It was decided that the bee operation would take place on Sunday while we were all at church and that Cirino would take care of it with the help of a neighbor. So, before leaving for church, Angie moved her furniture around in her room so that Cirino and the neighbor could get to the right ceiling panel.

We got home from church and....wow! Cirino had blocked our driveway with a huge tire so that we wouldn't go straight home, but would wait for him to make sure that the coast was clear of angry bees that were trying to come "home" and realizing that their hive had been removed. After donning his protective gear, Cirino checked out the house and called the "coast clear" and we were able to go into the house.


We first noticed the overwhelming odor of smoke in the entire house. Cirino and the neighbor must have used some kind of smoke at some point to help get rid of the bees. I then went to Angie's room. The ceiling panel was back in place, but there were dead bees and ashes everywhere - all over the floor, on her bed, etc. Her room really reeked!

So, I helped her sweep, mop and change her sheets that night - just enough to be able to sleep somewhat comfortably. Angie missed school the next day in order to spend the whole day washing the majority of her clothing and bedding that smelled like smoke and getting her bedroom back into order - a major interruption to her life, an irritation and lots of hard work!

Thinking about this experience, the verse from James came to mind. Sometimes in our lives there can be "small" sins, bad habits or even thoughts that we feel aren't really doing any damage so we ignore them. Just like we felt like the bees weren't hurting anything and it was easier to leave them there than try and figure out to get rid of them. Or, maybe we try and cover up the sin or commit the sin a little bit less frequently or to a lesser scale, like when Cirino and Victor got rid of what they could see of the hive and spray a bit without getting to the root of the problem. However, the bee problem grew to the point that it could not longer be ignored. By then, trying to get rid of the bees was a major operation and a small disaster!

Sin, or even just bad habits and negative thought patterns, can be the same way - we can allow them to sit around in our lives feeling like no damage is being done, until the sin has grown so large and intrusive that it must be dealt with. At that point, dealing with the sin is usually a much bigger issue, much more difficult and much more destructive than if we had dealt with it through repentance from the very beginning.

So, don't let the bees hover around - get rid of that hive - NOW!