Song of Solomon 2:15 says, “Catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that ruin vineyards. Our vineyards are blooming.” So I guess foxes must be bad if you’re trying to run a vineyard. Little ones, especially. Most foxes are little anyway-- not even the size of the average dog. So either this scripture is pointing out that foxes are generally little, or that foxes that like to spoil vineyards are especially little. Either way, the point is clear. Destructive things come in small packages.

Life is a lot like that, too. Big things rarely bring us down-- it’s mostly the little things, especially after they’ve compounded. Little lies cause us problems when we have to tell bigger lies to cover them up. 20 ounce soft drinks don’t cause us to gain weight by themselves. (It takes a surplus of 3,500 calories on average to create a pound of body fat.) A bottle of Mountain Dew has 290 calories. If everything else about your diet and activity level remains the same, one bottle a day would still make you thirty pounds heavier a year from now. Little foxes seem harmless, but they can do major damage.

Vineyards are a picture of our productivity-- and the grapes are what we get accomplished for the Kingdom. Foxes dig the vineyards up, preventing grapes from growing, and they eat many of the grapes that do grow. Simply put, foxes kill productivity. And in my life, the productivity killers are usually the time killers. Games (Angry Birds, anyone?), the Internet, and cable news (including Fox News). Everyone needs some down time, but too much down time can become wasted time. Little foxes seem cute and harmless, but underneath that facade, they’re really jackals. Or close relatives, anyway.

What are the little foxes that are trying to destroy your vineyards, and what’s your plan to catch them and get rid of them?