Proverbs 5
Have you ever tasted vanilla extract? Vanilla extract is a kitchen ingredient that has a decadent scent. Whenever I use it in recipes, I am always tempted by its sweet vanilla aroma. However, I know better because of giving into this temptation when I was a young child. I remember when helping my grandma make cookies, I smelled the extract. It smelled so nice. So, I tried a bit and quickly spit it out as it was very bitter. Did you have the same reaction?
Vanilla extract smells as though it should be pleasing to the taste buds, but it leads us astray. It is, in fact, not delicious as its scent would make us believe. It instead leaves us with the desire to wash our mouths out.
In Proverbs 5 an adulteress in mentioned. The adulteress, it reads, has lips that drip honey, but in the end are actually bitter. Much like the seductive nature of the adulteress, so is sin in our lives. The things that tempt us may look good at first. But in the end will only be bitter to us. What looks pleasing to us in the moment, may not be so pleasing if we fall into the temptation.
The book of Proverbs time and time again tells us to listen to instruction so that we may be able to stay away from temptation. My grandma had told me that the vanilla extract was bitter and that I would not like it. But I didn’t listen. I could have avoided the bitter taste, but I was led astray by the sweet aroma. I forsook her instruction for the vanilla extract that looked pleasing in the moment.
-Hannah Deane
Today’s Bible reading passages can be read or listened to at BibleGateway here – 2 Kings 1-2 and Proverbs 5
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