Curiosity Killed the Christian

This isn't any one I know personally, just in case you were wondering.

Curiosity killed the Christian, but it began with a small compromise.

Meet David, a normal American man who lived a normal American life. He grew up in a good church—a church where his father was the pastor, and he gave his life to the Lord at the tender age of eight. His story is the same as so many other boys who grew up in the church. He was eager to learn stories from the Bible and he always said grace over their evening meals. David’s father was a good man who raised David to the best of his abilities to serve God with all of his heart.

When David became a teenager, his heart started to fall away from the church. Officially, his digression began when he hit puberty and he developed a fascination with girls. Though he never really left God, his heart was never fully committed to Him for a very long time. For some reason, he was not able to create a relationship with God that permanently changed his heart; it was always a “head” relationship. He became distracted with movies and music, but he never stopped attending the youth ski trips with his church. In fact, on almost every trip, he would walk forward at the end of the weekend and rededicate his life to the Lord. The change would last for a few weeks, but something would happen and he would forget to pray in the morning, then suddenly he would be at the next youth weekend walking the aisle one more time.

David dated many different girls on many different occasions. He was never looking for a serious relationship; he rather enjoyed dating and meeting a variety of girls. He would never date one for more than a month at a time. As he was a good-looking boy, he had no trouble finding girls who would show interest in them. For the most part, he treated the girls with respect. They would go to his favorite parking place and neck, but he always placed his Bible between them as a constant reminder that he wanted to remain a virgin when he got married.

When he went to college, he began to hang out at the frat house, where there was a plethora of beer and alcohol. He would drink once in a while, but he never got drunk; at least not very drunk. He was afraid that he would do something stupid if he got drunk, so he set his mind to never go too far. Life was fun for David. Most of it was a blur, for he went from one exiting event to the other. For David, life was very entertaining. When he was a senior he met Jennifer. They were married at the end of their last semester and moved to Dallas where he took a job as a computer technician.

They always attended church, but always watched their watches for the end of the service. One week, a dynamic speaker came to their church and together, they walked the aisle of recommitment at the end of the week. For Jennifer, it was the first time she really committed to God and she developed a relationship with God in her heart.

As time went by, the two of them became four and sleep became a foreign element for the small family. Jennifer felt as though she would be changing diapers for the rest of her life and David began to miss the days when times were fun. He loved his family, but deep inside, he felt the tug of his youth calling for him to return to Neverland. Before long, the kids were starting school and not long ago, they attended their son’s first Christmas recital. That was the year that David and Jennifer taught the young married couples Sunday school class together. They had never felt closer to God than they did now.

Then one day, completely unaware that he was being targeted, curiosity killed the Christian. David was finishing a report that was due the first thing on Monday morning and it was very late at night. Jennifer and the kids had long been snuggled in their beds, unaware that David had fallen. A pop up message appeared on his computer screen that said, “Come see me. My new web cam is working and I am cute.” He immediately deleted the message. An hour later, David saw the same message again. It was from a girl named Candy. He began to wonder if she was using the new web cam that he had seen at the mall the other day. It had better resolution than any of the previous models and he had been considering buying the camera for his office work. He walked into the bedroom and saw that Jennifer was asleep. He snuck back into his office and typed the web address into his computer. He only wanted to see if the resolution was truly as good as the advertisements had suggested. What he saw was in perfect clarity. Candy was indeed a very cute girl and they chatted for a moment before he logged off. But an hour had passed and the image of Candy was forever burned into his mind. He never logged on to that web site again.

After a year, David was promoted to manager and things were looking good for him. His son was now in third grade and his daughter was now playing soccer with her first grade class. Life became very busy for them. Between work and home and school and games and church and life, David began to miss his old fun days again. But he knew that those days were done and he re-embraced responsibility. As Halloween approached, his boss delegated the task of hiring a new office assistant to David. He met with all of the applicants for more than a week. He found most of the applicants to be more than qualified for the position, but he decided not to make a decision until after the company Halloween party. That night, one of the applicants, Beth, came dressed as a witch, a very naughty witch.

Beth was very attractive and she reminded David of his old days when he was carefree and able to do whatever he wanted. She floated around the room and flirted with all of the single men. He watched her for a long time and determined that with her charming personality, she would be an asset as an office assistant. Besides, she was really good with public relations.

The next morning, he invited her to lunch where he discussed the job responsibilities and made arrangements for her to get started the first thing Monday morning. His boss was more than pleased with his new assistant, especially when he noticed that she kept a bowl of candy on her desk for the pleasure of whoever chose to partake.

When David had to work overtime to complete the last of the fourth quarter reports, Beth volunteered to stay late and help him. He was hesitant, but she insisted and he consented. He watched her typing on her keyboard through his office window and realized that she was very attractive. He started to pick up his phone and call Jennifer to give her an update on his late night, but Beth was taking off her sweater, and she was very cute. He decided to do his on line research and turned away from her, but his computer failed to log on. David thought it best for him to shut down for the night and called Beth into his office to inform her of his decision. But while she listened to him, she reconfigured his log on information and his system was up and running before he could finish his sentence. He sat down to conduct his search, but his system froze up. Beth leaned over him and typed on his keyboard for a moment. Her hair touched his cheek and he sat breathless for a moment, not wanting to move, but screaming at himself to get a grip on reality. He tried to remember what his wife looked like, but then he remembered that she had put on about ten pounds. David leaned back to give Beth access to his computer, but when he did, he inadvertently looked over his shoulder and could see down Beth’s shirt. She was nearly perfect in every way. The long night grew longer and David, compromised and ashamed of himself for being unfaithful to his wife, drove home a defeated man. He tried to put the incident behind him, but he could still smell Beth’s perfume. He tried to forget the way she looked, but found one of her long blond hairs on his shirtsleeve. His life would never be the same.

If Jennifer knew of the incident she never said anything. David simply chose to forget the affair and continued to live his life. He no longer wished for his fun days. He only wished that he had never lived them only to be tempted by them. He was miserable and hated himself for his indiscretion.

After a year, he had almost forgotten that fateful and solitary night. Beth never mentioned the incident and she pretended that it never happened better than David did. She probably had practice in putting these things behind her. But every time David saw Beth, his memory would flare up and he asked his boss for a lateral transfer to a satellite office across town. He focused very hard on his relationship with his wife and things were better for them than they ever had been. The next winter he developed a cough that caused him to miss a lot of work and he stayed home for a full week while he recovered from his cold. He was watching the 700 Club one morning when he heard a loud scream coming from his son’s room. He ran into the bedroom and saw that his son had lacerated his arm with a piece of broken glass and was bleeding profusely. David reached to stop the blood flow but cut his own hand on the glass that was still protruding from the wound. They rushed to the emergency room and managed to stitch up both of their wounds without further incident.

David’s cough never got better and he went to the doctor to get the latest in prescribed medications that stops colds. The doctor could do nothing for him but took some blood samples to check his cholesterol levels. The cough never went away. Within three days, the doctor called to tell David that they needed to meet within the week, he had bad news for him.

David first called Beth to tell her that she needed to go to a doctor and be tested for HIV.

Mankind is miserably curious, often to his own detriment.