The Pastor’s Piece – Pastor Kevin Cernek, FCFI Chaplain

FCFI

March 15, 2026

It is skunk season.

I was driving home from church the other night and a skunk ran out in front of my truck. I had absolutely no time to react so I just drove right over the top of it. I expected to hear it thud under the wheels, but nothing happened. I had driven right over the top of it and missed it altogether. That was a close call.

Back in my earlier days I owned a 1976 Ford Maverick. It had a few miles on it when I bought her and the oil light never shut off. Thus the 50 dollar price tag. But it ran like a champ and I put 25,000 miles on it then sold it for the same price as I purchased it for. It was pretty well rusted out from Day One, but that didn’t bother me. One night when I was driving down the highway I hit a skunk. It was raining and the skunk stunk to high heaven. Ever smell wet skunk? It smells like a wet dog that has rolled around for a while on a dead carcass in the back yard.

When I got home I pulled in the garage and jumped out. But the smell was so intense it made my eyes water so I quickly backed out and let it sit outside. When I got in the house I smelled like wet skunk. I had to go outside and leave my clothes on the back patio. That Maverick never got over the smell. With the rusted out fenders and wet tires the skunk smell was spread all over the back part of the car – in the trunk and even in the backseat where there was a hole in the floor. I finally sold it because every time I went somewhere I had to discard my clothes when I got home. And it was my work car besides and I worked on a farm! That’s how bad it was.

One time my dad had one of those pesky critters living under his back deck. He didn’t mind it so much, but the dang thing must have gotten in a fight with another wild animal and had to use his stinker, because there was always the slight and ever-so-constant smell of a skunk in the vicinity. So one night he set the live trap using cat food for bait. He tied about 40 feet of twine to the cage and stretched it out into the open yard far away from the house. The next morning, sure enough, he had a skunk in there. I was out doing my chores when I saw him on the end of that rope tugging that live trap with a skunk inside down the lane toward the creek. I know skunks are our friends because they eat insects and rodents, but smelly skunks are a friend to no one. A kid in our youth group had a t-shirt with a skunk on it and a saying underneath it that said: “I smell the smelly smell of something that smells smelly.”

We used to have a gigantic, hollow maple tree in our back yard. When we cut it down, a mama skunk and four little babies climbed out. Mama ran off. I ran for the hills, but the guy helping me scooped up those babies and took them home to his wife to raise. They are cute, that’s for sure, but no thanks. One time my brother had a baby skunk in the barn that ate with the cats. Everytime he gave the cats a little milk in their dish, that little skunk would come out to join them. He thought he was a cat. The kids would pet him and play with him. Eventually he too had to go. It’s not just country folks who have to deal with those wild critters. Skunks adapt well in suburbia too. They live under decks and in woodpiles – wherever they can get easy food and water. And they live all over  North America –  nobody can get away from them.

So, I drove over the top of a skunk on my way home from church that night. I didn’t hit it with the tires and thought I’d avoided a major annoyance. But when I got home and parked in the garage, I realized that vermin had sprayed the underside of my truck when I passed over it. The truck would have to sit outside for a while until the smell subsided.

All this got me thinking –  a skunk doesn’t even have to bite you to cause trouble. You don’t even have to hit one on the highway. Just getting too close is enough to leave a smell that sticks with you for a long time. Sin is like that. We think if we don’t dive all the way in, we’re safe. We tell ourselves we only got a little close to it. But just being around the wrong things, the wrong influences, or the wrong habits can leave a bad smell on us. Before we know it, something we thought we avoided has rubbed off on us anyway, and it stinks.

The Bible warns us not just to resist sin, but to stay away from it altogether. When we get too close, the effects can linger long after the moment is gone, just like that skunk smell that hangs around even after the truck has been washed and parked outside for weeks. The smartest thing you can do is keep your distance from what stinks.

“Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded,” (James 4:7-8).

(Kevin Cernek is Lead Pastor of Martintown Community Church in Martintown, Wisconsin)