It’s thrilling to see a shooting star. But it’s no fun for the meteoroid. When a space rock flies too close to our planet, it’s pulled into our atmosphere by gravity. The heat generated by friction causes intense heat, and the meteoroid is usually burned up.

Don’t become a shooting star! The world—along with the flesh and the devil—project a gravitational field. We’re drawn to them. We easily veer into sin, which burns us. We must be constantly on guard. Henry B. Carrington, a nineteenth-century Civil War soldier and writer, said, “There is a subtle pull also in the drift of fashion and usage which carries away everyone who is not established on a Bible conscience.”

Take attending church, for example. Losing the habit can start with a small, seemingly innocent decision to skip one week, then continue as you gradually miss more and more until the pattern is virtually burned up by the world’s atmosphere. Take care each day to avoid being drawn into the gravitational pull of the world.

The downward pull of sin is tremendous. To be able firmly to say, “Yet will not I,” requires the grace from above in the heart.
Henry B. Carrington