It all started with curiosity. Just what was there about that forbidden tree anyway? And now we are facing a huge epidemic. None of us are inoculated against it, and it attacks us at the most inopportune moments.

Take, for example, the moment someone shows up with a book in hand. We can’t help but wonder what that person is reading. Most often we embarrass ourselves because we have never even heard of the writer of that book: “Hmmm…Yeah…It looks to be a …hmmmm…fascinating book.”

“Fascinating? Actually it’s pretty boring. I have to read it for the course I’m taking.”

“Hmmmm….”

Curiosity is a plague and we can’t shake the urge to fulfill it.

While in Kenya, my oldest son and his team mates took some time off from building the well and the kitchen for the orphanage near Nairobi (a curiosity by itself) to go on a safari. They rode in special matatus, ones that had tops that could be raised in order for passengers to stand up and take pictures of the wildlife. As they were driving through the outskirts of the preserve, he and his team mates noticed another tourist matatu following them. They hadn’t spotted any wildlife yet, but they decided to put the nearby matatu to the curiosity test. Suddenly all of them stood up and began leaning out the right side of the matatu, pointing and staring to the right, with cameras glued to their faces. In reality however, there was nothing out there!

The other matatu stopped in its tracks and its passengers peered earnestly towards the spot my son and his team mates were focused on. Out of nowhere, a wild pig appeared-or at least, that’s what they think it was!-and rammed the curious matatu on its left side. The poor people inside were focused on the wrong side all of the time!

For some reason they stopped following my son’s matatu. I guess they got over their curiosity!

Curiosity can be quite dangerous, especially if we entertain unhealthy possibilities. “God struck some of the men of Beth Shemesh who, out of curiosity, irreverently peeked into the Chest of God. Seventy died.” (1 Sam 6:19 The Message)

If we are not focused on Christ all of the time, we may be treading on dangerous grounds! (see Heb 12:2 – 4)

But then again, God can use curiosity to help those enslaved to stinky, yucky stuff to find freedom through Him! “All the soldiers here, and everyone else too, found out that I’m in jail because of this Messiah. That piqued their curiosity, and now they’ve learned all about him” (Phil 1:13 The Message)

“Oh you won’t believe what just happened to me! It’s out-of-this world!”

Curious?

“Nah! Not me. Never. So what was it that happened?”

Rob Chaffart

(To view the entire “Nairobi, Here I Come!” devotional series, please click here.)