It’s usually a problem you get with children. But not us. I’m not aware of our kids ever having done this. For us, it seems to be a problem with the adults. A problem I’d like to avoid happening again.

My wife had been out at a church thing. If you know anything about UK council estates, you will know they are often a rabbit warren of walkways. The particular thing was at someone’s house on one such estate and Mrs K said she got a bit lost on the estate getting back to the car. It also bears saying it was very dark and estates are not always the best lit so she wasn’t quite sure where she was going and visibility was not good.

Anyway, she made it back to the car and began to wend her way home. Mrs K arrived home and immediately wandered in, through the hallway, into the lounge. We were chatting and I suddenly got a whiff of something unpleasant. We couldn’t figure it out, hopefully it would pass. But sure enough, the smell stayed. We still couldn’t tell what it was but it was pretty strong and vile. As I got up to head to the kitchen, I caught sight of my wife’s shoe which had clearly trod in a significant and copious amount of dog muck.

We knew there was dog poo on the shoe. This was clear. But where else had it been stomped in through the house. I went out to investigate and, at this point, began to rue the fact that the entire area is carpeted. Worse, carpets that are shades of brown! Is that dog muck or is it just the heft of the carpet? It was dificult to tell and we decided to treat any suspicious patches with the appropriate caution it deserved, cracking out the Dr Beckmann’s and applying it liberally.

I then became aware, for reasons known only to her, Mrs K had not removed the shoe at the point we disovered it had been soiled. Instead, she walked (carefully, she insisted, only on the heel) into the kitchen with it still on foot. Alas, not by the route in which she came in, but completing the full circle and, with it, increasing the area for inspection that was now beginning to resemble this classic scene from the film Drop Dead Fred. This meant another room to clean.

Suddenly, the thought dawned, what about the car? It wasn’t entirely clear at what point this had happened but it probably wasn’t in the couple of steps from car to front door on our driveway. We don’t even have a dog! In the dark we had to go outside and try out best to see, with phone torches held aloft, if the car had suffered a daubing and to clean it as best we could.

And so it was, our Friday evening was somewhat marred by the hour long clean up, first of shoes and then of multiple carpets and even a vehicle, of stomped in dog excrement. Which, let me tell you, gets everywhere. What began as a contained, small ‘incident’ that could easily have been cleaned became something that spread and made everything utterly disgusting.

Here, in a nutshell, is a graphic and yet powerful picture of sin. Yes friends, your sin is just like dog faeces. Dog poo that you got on your shoe and determined to stomp all over your carpeted house.

In your house, I can assure (now from bitter experience) there is no amount of acceptable dog poo. A little bit of dog excrement anywhere in your house is far too much! Nothing teaches you this lesson more clearly than when you are the one who has to clean it. There are no acceptable amounts of dog poo to handle.

Worse, if even only a little bit of dog poo gets on your shoe and it is not cleaned and removed straightaway, it gets everywhere. The moment you step into your house, you bring it into contact with everything. The more you move around with it on your foot the worse the problem becomes and the more stuff gets contaminated. Even a small amount of dog poo creates a disturbingly large mess if it isn’t sorted rightaway.

This is just like sin. In God’s eyes, and it bears saying he is the one who has to clean it up, there is no acceptable amount of sin. Even a little bit of sin is utterly deplorable and ultimately contaminating. It is utterly disgusting and not something you should want to handle or roll around in.

Sin also has a habit of ruining everything with which it comes into contact. Even a tiny bit of sin will, if it is not dealt with immediately, spread so that it is effectively stomped everywhere. The more you stomp it about, the messier it is to clean up.

And so, I am grateful for the reminder even if I wish it had just come from reading the Word or something.