A Little Leavening

During one of the services at church, a thought came to me, “Why is it that we find ourselves as Christians doing things we never imagined we would do?” While thinking on this, I remembered the part in the bible that talked about how “a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.” – Galatians 5:9 (KJV).

One bible version explains it further to say that a slight inclination to error perverts the whole conception of faith, while another replaces the word ‘leaven’ with ‘yeast’.

As I thought on this, I tried to relate it with baking, although I know very little about it. Think of the yeast used in bread as the “little” sins in our lives. Compared to the flour used in the baking, the yeast isn’t as much, but it has a major role in making the bread rise, strengthening it and giving it flavour.

The yeast, while it is not much, affects the whole outcome of the bread; what it looks like, how it feels and what it tastes like. While not much, it has an effect on the bread that is easily compared to the effect sin has on our lives. It might seem little and innocuous, but it affects us greatly in the long run.

There are times after I have done something majorly wrong that I start asking myself how I got to that point. Surely I wasn’t this kind of person before. I start to think back on how it started, and then I realise it wasn’t even something huge that set it all off. It was something very small, almost insignificant.

It starts with ignoring that little wrong here, ignoring that little wrong there and before much is said, I’m so far from the where it all started. It grows and grows to the point where returning to the past becomes difficult.

In such situations, only the grace of God can bring one back to the position where we can serve Him as we ought to.

How great it would be if we could check our every action and thought without seeing any of it as “too little” to count!