Two days ago, I had this very funny and thought-provoking experience. Work resumed with a technical working group workshop on health, after the Independence Day holiday (including the weekend). I hadn't seen my colleagues since three days or more till that time, so when we met at the workshop venue, it felt like it's been ages, so there was a lot of shaking of hands and warm greetings. Meeting started, lunch break came and lunch was soon served. For some reasons, I took my food upstairs to my hotel room to devour the food far from multiple eyes and without any sense of propriety, table etiquette and correctness that eating in the hall would demand.
In the silence and seclusion of my room, I merried in the deliciousness of my lunch, dismounting and relocating the rice heaps in a matter of few minutes, and was about to attack the large chunk of fried chicken in similar fashion, when the struggle began. First let me quickly explain, at workshops like these, where one has to be served meals in the workshop hall, or somewhere close to it, washing hand before meal is often not feasible and since we eat with fork, knife and spoon, it can also be considered as the least of our worries. But here am I in my room, about to pick on my meat with my unwashed hands (if I were eating downstairs, I would have nibbed at it bit by bit with my fork and knife~ energy sapping, appetite killing manual labour... Lol).
As I was about picking the meat, the voice of propriety in my head began "Amaka, you know what you are about to do is not proper, why not go wash your hand then relax and eat your meat without care, the other voice （you know they are always two or more...lol） fired back ”If you were downstairs would have washed your hands, why are you acting so holy, eat your meat and hurry back, workshop has continued and you the consultant, you are here wasting time”.
In response, i thought out loud “Men I no even get energy to get up from here ”（not after the duel with the heap of rice）. I was beginning to rationalize that if i had been downstairs , I wouldn't have even thought of washing hands, when the voice of correctness went again “but you would have used knife and fork or even the serviette”. The defensive voice went again “As if your unwashed hands has beaver touched your meat while eating in workshops”.
To cut the whole crap, i decided to pick my meat anyway, there was no time nor energy to get up and “trek” to the bathroom for some hands washing ritual, but just as I picked my meat by the tips, the voice of propriety dropped one last point, “think of all those men that shook your hands today, think of what they might have done with those hands, stuffs like picking their noses, scratching some itchy spots on their body or even holding their “stuff” while urinating. And you don't even know the condition their stuffs are in, whether it is cancroid and full of sores from STI/Ds. Do you remember that movie “outbreak” and how the virus was so innocently transferred from one person to another, it wont take you anything to wash your hands or would you risk exposing your self to the unknown？” it gently counselled. And before I realized it, I was standing in the bathroom, washing my hands in the hand basin, whether I flew or ran to the place and where the energy came from, I cant tell.
Isn't this our everyday experience with struggles of sin？ but if only we can remember that the consequences of sin will surely follow, and though the effect may not be known nor seen, yet it doesn't make it worth the risk.
If only we could see or reflect on the possibly horrible aftermath of sin, we would shake and shudder in disgust, but thank God for the saving grace available to all who will choose to come beneath its cleansing and healing power. Have a great day, and always choose what is right not what is comfortable.