Slow destruction, or coming home

I remember hearing a song on the radio by Casting Crowns. It was called “Slow Fade.” 

The point of the song is that falling away from God’s ways and into sin is rarely an all-at-once experience. It is a “slow fade.” In other words, it is the cumulative effect of a series of smaller decisions or actions.

Their warning is wise. Someone’s “fade” may be slow, but it is not accidental.

Small concessions to sin underestimate the severity of sin. When we normalize it, or when we move a certain idea or action from a ‘sin’ category to an ‘it’s fine and not that bad’ category, we have already shifted our compass—and therefore, our direction—to a bad place.

In the story of Cain and Abel, God said this to Cain in Genesis 4:7: “sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, and you must rule over it.” Picture sin as an embodied entity. It “crouches at the door” just looking for a chance to pounce.

Carlos Martins has spent decades helping people, many of whom have dealt with the carnage of sin. He says: “We are daily tempted towards ‘harmless’ compromises—a little curiosity about forbidden things, a little contempt for prayer, a little resentment towards the holy. The enemy’s strategy is always to make sin look trivial and repentance look dramatic. In reality, it is the other way around. Sin is what destroys us. Repentance is simply coming home.”*

What a wonderful way to say it. “The enemy’s strategy is always to make sin look trivial and repentance look dramatic. In reality, it is the other way around. Sin is what destroys us. Repentance is simply coming home.”

Sin is crouching at the door. But the forgiving arms of a loving Father are open.

If it’s good, let’s call it good. If it’s sin, let’s call it sin. But let’s not confuse the two. A “slow fade” is still a fade.

“The enemy’s strategy is always to make sin look trivial and repentance look dramatic. In reality, it is the other way around. Sin is what destroys us. Repentance is simply coming home.”

Notes:

-*Carlos Martins, “Maid for More, Pt 2,” The Exorcist Files podcast, January 22, 2026.
-Bible quotes, ESV.