What She Doesn’t Know . . .

You shall not move your neighbor’s landmark, which the men of old have set, in the inheritance that you will hold in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to possess. Deuteronomy 19:14

I’ve justified many of my toxic behaviors over the years by telling myself that if my wife didn’t know and never found out, that it couldn’t really hurt her. That bottle of alcohol I hid in the garage, or the pills in my backpack? If she didn’t know they were there, they had no effect on her, right? Yes, I understood that what I was doing was wrong and that if she discovered it, it would be tremendously hurtful, but I convinced myself that I was engaging in a victimless crime – if she never found out. It became my duty then, to hide that life from her for her own protection. I realize how horrible and insane that sounds now, but it made sense at the time.

The problem was that my addictive behavior was terribly self-destructive, and I couldn’t self-destruct in a vacuum. While there was anyone close to me, my self-destruction was going to eventually spill over into their lives. I told myself that I’d quit drinking and using before I suffered any significant repercussions, but that was an obvious lie. Early on, I surrendered control of my addiction and as my life spiraled out of control, it had a profound and terrible impact on those around me, particularly my wife.

Today’s passage isn’t about marriage or drugs, but it speaks to this victimless sin idea. In it, God told his people that they shouldn’t try to take advantage of their neighbors, even if the neighbor remained ignorant. Using the scenario of manipulating property boundaries, it’s easy to imagine the temptation – This works out to my advantage and my neighbor never needs to know. What he (or she) doesn’t know can’t possibly hurt him.

The problem is that with any sin, we turn ourselves from God, hurting ourselves first. We may tell ourselves that it’s no big deal, but any willful defiance of God is a big deal. Even if the only consequence we ever suffered was that we damaged our relationship with God, that would remain a terrible consequence. We rarely self-destruct in a vacuum though. As we abandon God to follow self, we lose control and eventually, our toxic behavior spills over into the lives of those around us. Even if the other person never discovers our guilt, he or she is still impacted by the damage we do to ourselves. We may think we’re protecting a harmless secret, but what others don’t know can and will still hurt them terribly.