Contaminated

It had been a really long trip, but we had almost made it from Lincoln, Nebraska to Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. Our flight from Sydney landed in Cairns, and we made our way to the international terminal for the final leg of our journey. We were the only passengers in sight as we walked through the departure hall and made our way through immigrations. As we passed through security one of the men requested that I step across for the additional test that they sometimes do on passengers to "sniff" out explosives. I've had this done on me many times, and so I didn't think anything of it until the testing machine started blinking red! A second test and the same results.... as far as the official machine was concerned my back pack was contaminated with some kind of explosive agent.
 
The agents were very nice, and they never acted as if they suspected us of any wrong doing. They suggested that the contamination could have happened as simply as my bag coming in contact with fertilizer or some such thing. But they had their job to do, and the process demanded that all our bags be tested, so we had to wait as they offloaded our checked bags and tested them as well. Fortunately no further trace of contamination was found, and we were still able to catch our flight and arrive in Papua New Guinea as planned, completing the 36 hour trip in time to get a good night's rest before flying on to Goroka the next day!

Even though I have no idea why my backpack tested positive, I am certainly going to make sure it goes through the laundry before we make our return trip. I don't need any additional excitement on a long trip like that!

We are told in the first letter to the church at Thessalonica that a follower of Christ should abstain from all appearance of evil. Too often we can downplay the impact on our lives and the lives of others by the compromises we make in our Christian walk. It is so easy to be contaminated by close association with the wrong environment, and that contamination can have long term and significant effects.

Keeping that caution in mind, we can be very encouraged by the words that follow soon after the above warning in 1 Thessalonians 5: "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it."

Our God is a personal, loving God who wants a close relationship with each one of us. He can keep us from the contamination of this world if we allow Him to preserve us blameless! It is what He wants to do, and He is able to do it.