I have absolutely no desire to try to walk across hot coals. Just don’t. You may try to tell me that I can gain some kind of mental power out of it, but I will laugh at you. If you think you get mental power and clarity by walking on hot coals, you must have a really cloudy mind. What kind of clarity can you get from that?

That aside, I will confess to you that I do like playing with fire. The literal kind, not the figurative kind. Maybe it’s getting back to my roots. Maybe it’s because I’m a wannabe prepper. I don’t know. I just know that I really enjoy fires. It’s fun to just sit and watch a fire burn.

We had a wood stove growing up. And since we lived in Ohio, we would burn a fire most days through the winter. So, as a pretty young kid, I learned how to build fires. I spent a lot of time sitting in front of our wood stove watching the fire burn, throwing stuff in it, melting the bottom of my shoes on the doors and heating up the rebar fire-stoker we had so I could burn patterns into the wood box.

And I’ll tell you one thing, there were times when I got burned. Only ever bad enough for mom to put butter on the wound, but when you play with fire – you’re gonna get burned. That’s an expression that we’ve all heard a thousand times. And yet, how often do we go on with whatever it was we wanted to do. We know it’s a bad idea, and yet we continue on.

Proverbs 6:27-35

Can a man hold fire against his chest
without burning his clothes?
Can a man walk on hot coals
without scorching his feet?
So it is with the one who has sex with his neighbor’s wife;
no one who touches her will escape punishment.
People do not despise a thief when he steals
to fulfill his need when he is hungry.
Yet if he is caught he must repay seven times over,
he might even have to give all the wealth of his house.
A man who commits adultery with a woman lacks wisdom,
whoever does it destroys his own life.
He will be beaten and despised,
and his reproach will not be wiped away;
for jealousy kindles a husband’s rage,
and he will not show mercy when he takes revenge.
He will not consider any compensation;
he will not be willing, even if you multiply the compensation.

This is why we are supposed to run from the seductress. She is fire. And you cannot play with fire without getting burned. And when you’re playing with fire on the level of the seductress, you are playing with an acetylene torch. And if you’re playing with an acetylene torch, throwing it around, seeing how close you can get to it, the chances are we will destroy our life. We will be destroyed.

I have had the unfortunate experience of trying to help people who have played with this kind of fire. It’s brutal. It can be one of the most difficult things to recover from, and the sad truth is that many don’t. So, whatever seduction you are playing with, drop it and run. It’s not worth the destruction that will come to your life.

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