New Year’s Bus Ride

An ad on a bus I rode home today carried this message: It normally takes seven attempts to quit smoking. Don’t give up. You can do it.

Why can’t we keep people from starting the tobacco habit? Why don’t we make the sale illegal?

The reason we don’t is that prohibition doesn’t work. The prohibition of alcohol resulted in the expansion of criminal activity and the corruption of the police and government. Today as we try to prohibit the sale of illegal drugs, the result has been the same as in the past. Drug pedaling is an international gang business and enforcement is often involved in the corruption.

Maybe we should learn from God’s example. In the Garden of Eden God did not ban the snake or his products. God wanted us manage the snake, and not let the snake manage us.  When we center our lives in Christ, our focus is on him and all of the snake’s seductive products are moved outside our field of vision to the periphery as a matter of unimportance.