Blood trickled down my face, and tears welled up in my eyes. I was shocked. One minute, I was having a great day. The next, well, this.

I never liked my cousin’s dog, and I’m sure she never liked me. Her name was Lady, but she didn’t act like one. She was one of those small fluffy dogs that yap instead of bark.

It was a strange time in my life. My aunt, uncle, cousin, and their dog had just moved from out of state and were still looking for a place to live while my uncle started his new job. So, they moved in with us while they transitioned. It made an already pretty small house even smaller. To make matters worse, they had the most annoying dog I had ever met. Whenever I came near Lady, she would start growling and yapping at me. It was amazing how something so small could be so scary.

Despite her vocal hatred for me, everyone assured me that she would never bite and that I had nothing to fear. They would advise me to ignore her and keep doing what I was doing. This advice seemed ludicrous to me. How was I supposed to ignore this genetically modified monster that would chase me around my own house, trying to kill me? Yet everyone thought she was so cute and precious.

I didn’t get it until today. I was sitting on my aunt and uncle’s bed, which was in the garage. We did everything possible to turn it into a little apartment for them. Despite our best efforts to cozy it up, it was still a garage. Which is probably why my cousin and I loved hanging out in it so much. It felt kind of like a fort. That and my cousin’s Super Nintendo was hooked up out there. So I sat on the bed watching my cousin play Star Fox, patiently waiting my turn. I looked over the side of the bed, and Lady was on the floor. She was lying on her little bed, not actively trying to murder me. She looked up at me as I looked at her, and for the first time, she was calm. We just looked at each other.

“Maybe we could be friends. She is actually kind of cute.” I thought to myself. Then I screamed. One second, she was lying on the ground looking cute and fluffy. The very next second, she was latched onto my nose. All I saw was a blur of movement and then pain.

“I thought she would never bite!” I yelled as I ran out of the garage, holding my nose. Looking back, I could see her standing there, smug and victorious.

The adults jumped up from their seats in the living room, confused and trying to figure out what the commotion was about. While I ran to the bathroom to see how bad the damage was.

“I can’t believe it!” I thought. Here, I thought that maybe she was a good dog, and all the while, she was planning her attack. She tricked me! She looked at me with those puppy eyes and then destroyed my face. Luckily, despite the viciousness of her sneak attack, the damage was superficial and would heal without any serious attention.

I learned an important lesson that day. First, never trust a small dog. If you are reading this and own a small dog, I don’t mean to offend you, but I advise you to sleep with one eye open. Secondly, just because something looks harmless doesn’t mean that it is. Many things in life seem very attractive, only to jump up and bite us in the end.

This is the very nature of sin. It is deceitful. It promises to fill some need or want in our life but only leaves us broken and hurt. James 1:14–15 says: “But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.”

Sin is easy to resist when it’s something we don’t want. What makes sin so difficult is that it is something we want. It comes from a desire inside of us. This isn’t to say that all desire is wrong. Not at all. It’s when that desire causes us to seek satisfaction outside of what God has provided.

We want happiness, for example, and God has provided us happiness in himself and the life where he is the center. However, we would rather be the center, so we look for a shortcut and find happiness in things that only end up hurting us. It’s like you want a dog, but you don’t want to have to feed it that much, and you want it to always be small enough to sit in your lap so you don’t get a real dog. You get something else. Something that fills your need for a dog, but it’s not a dog. It’s a devil.

Sin looks so good and so satisfying for a little while, but sin is just luring you in so that it can strike you and ultimately take your life. If you have experienced the sting of sin in your life, I encourage you to turn to Jesus today. Turn away from the counterfeit and look to the authentic satisfier of every soul. He took that sting on the cross so you wouldn’t have to.

Trevor Rickard is an Associate Pastor at New Life Christian Fellowship.