The Gentle Slope of Sin
April 14, 2026
A woman I love very deeply once shared with me that she cheated on her husband.
She said, “I never thought I’d be here. No one plans to commit adultery, you know…. it’s not a conscious choice. It just seems to happen to you more than by you. No one gets married with the intent of being unfaithful. It is a subtle, slow walk into a place I never thought I’d go.”
She was not escaping responsibility or minimizing the pain her choices had caused. She knew the weight of the consequences and had already wrestled with the guilt of her actions. What she was describing was something different: the slow realization of how she had arrived there. As she spoke, her words felt almost like a warning.
A subtle, slow walk into a place I never thought I’d go.
I have seen this same pattern appear again and again in places marked by sin and darkness. A teenager takes a drink just once to numb the pain of a difficult moment and decades later finds himself jobless, alone, and enslaved to the substance he once thought harmless. A married man indulges the temptation to look at another woman’s body only once and years later finds himself bound by lust he cannot control. Abusers, murderers, and addicts were once simply ordinary people who slowly stepped into stories they never intended to write.
Over the years I have come to realize something unsettling: I am capable of becoming just like them. But for the mercy of God, so would I be.
As CS Lewis describes “The safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”
So how do we avoid this gently sloped path?
It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit and in the context of community.
In our relentless and continuous pursuit of God, we allow Him to enter into the depths of our soul, and in the nearness of his presence, our impure motives, secret thoughts, bitternesses we have clung to are drawn out and painfully revealed. And we were never meant to journey this process alone.
We are kept off the gently sloped path by vulnerable, honest relationships with others who are dedicated to these same things. Faithful friends who will reflect back our words and sharpen them through the Word of God. Only in community, can we find the strength to be kept from darkness, and found in Him.
It is a moment by moment dependence.
Everyday, even every minute, my heart wanders away from my God. Even in the utterance of a genuine prayer, my mind can wander to dark places. Even as I muster the courage to apologize for my wrongdoing to my spouse, I withhold from Him.
“Even our tears of repentance need to be washed by the blood of the lamb.”
Even our greatest attempts to clean ourselves up and become a “good Christian” are tainted and will leave us wanting.
Your good doings will no more bring you into heaven than a high jump will land you on the moon.
Sometimes in the moments of those darkest temptations, all our heart can utter in desperation is “keep me, Lord.”
But the good news, reader, is that he is able to do just that.
He will keep us.
He will shine His light, and the darkness must flee. If only we would ask Him to.
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1:5
-Rachel
