Rat Poison

It was 1985 and we were living in an old three-story stone and brick house in the Brainerd area of Chattanooga.  We lived on the middle floor with the kids’ bedrooms upstairs.  The house was on a steep hill, so the basement was totally underground on the front end but opening out by a garage door on the back end.  Our washer and dryer were in the basement, so we spent a lot of time in the basement.  My wife announced that there was a smell in the basement.  I nosed around but couldn’t find anything.  As days went by the smell got worse.  A reward was offered, but kids were not interested in finding a “stinking” reward.  I narrowed it down to the washer area.  I thought that maybe a leak in the washer allowed mildew to build up, but my idea didn’t get any traction from the rest of the family.  I finally upended the washer and found … a dead rat.  I had set out poison to exterminate unwanted visitors to the drafty basement, and the poisoned vermin had died looking for water - dripping from the washer.  Hey, as I discovered that rat carcass, I saw how God perceived my righteousness: As putrefying bandages!  The prophet Isaiah said in Isaiah 64:6, “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags …”  The best we can come up with before a holy God is nothing.  The best we have is like an old Band-Aid soiled with nasty oozing all over it.  Our righteousness is like that nasty rat carcass!  Hey, God is so holy that we can’t even begin to imagine His purity!  But, thankfully, God can redeem us and make us as pure as He is pure!  Thank you, dear Lord, for your salvation!