It happened during my accounting class today. I was working on posting the entries from the general journal in to the individual accounts for the fictional Wilma Poole and her jewelry shop, Poole's Jewels. For those of you non-accountants, this won't make much sense, but bear with me for a minute. Basically, as I was in the process of filling out the debit and credit columns, I committed a big accounting faux pax. Instead of putting the credits from the debit account into the credit column, I put them all into the debit column. To the normal reader, this doesn't sound so bad. In fact, when I realized this mistake, even I didn't think it was so bad. But it was. It was real bad.
Over an hour of work spent on this seemed to be wasted. Because of one little mistake, my totals were all off. My debits didn't equal my credits. Poole's Jewels was in hot water.
Thinking about how one little mistake in the accounts could unbalance everything really clicked with a verse I read just a little while ago.
"You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion is not from him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump." Galatians 5:7-9This was in Paul's testy letter to the church in Galatia. What he's saying is that though the Galatians started the race of the faith well, error had crept in, and "a little leaven leavens the whole lump" - or, it only took the slightest bit of error for it to spread throughout the entire church. Like in accounting, one little mistake can affect all the accounts, one little sin in our life or in the church can quickly spread to those all around us.
So though I may be cursing Wilma Poole (and her little jewelry shop too!), I've seen an illustration of how sin can spread, and now I will work extra hard to pray for strength to run the race well (oh, and try to keep the accounts balanced too!)