Thursday, August
23, 2018
Proverbs 30:1-2(NLT)
Since we dealt with snakes
in the church grass yesterday, I might as well deal with my other mania and get
it out of the way; we’re talking arachnids today, the eight-legged scourge of
the earth.
In our family I was always
the designated
hitter when it came to anything crawling, flying or
slithering. My girls were especially
terrified of crawling things. Spiders
were the worst! I have seen my wife and
daughters run from spiders, shriek and squeal
when threatened by spiders (usually because our son, Jason was wielding one
like a weapon); I have seen them walk three blocks out of the way
to avoid the last place they saw a spider. My girls do not like spiders. To tell you the truth, I’m not overly fond of
them myself!
When we moved into the
church parsonage in 1990 the carpeting was well past its prime. The church folks graciously allowed us to
pick out new floor coverings for the entire home. My wife likes white...all white, so she
picked white carpeting for 2400 square feet!
We lived in a snow palace!
Early one morning, shortly
after moving into this winter wonderland I heard a piercing cry coming from the
general direction of the back bedrooms.
Our daughter, Carrie, age 9, was pinned to the wall, cowering near her
door; the expression on her face was as if Attila and the Huns were on the
doorstep. I looked left and right for
the bad guys and saw nothing. Then,
looking back to Carrie, I saw her pointing to the hallway floor near where I
was standing. There, highlighted against
the snow-white carpet, center-hallway was one of the biggest, blackest, hairiest
spiders I'd ever seen. I felt like David
the shepherd boy facing Goliath the spider.
The creature was glaring at me with a menacing look that said: I'm the new big cheese on the block; come
on, big fella, let's see what'cha got.
For an instant I couldn't
decide whether to run or scream for Carrie to protect me! Then I remembered, I was the protector! I would have to deal with this dragon. My
"father-protects-his-kid-no-matter-the-cost" image was on the
line. No Goliath arachnid was going to
steal my little girl's trust in me. So I
called for Elizabeth
I have never understood how
(to women) brooms are better than an axe or baseball bat in times of crisis...but
a broom was now my weapon! I calculated
the distance, allowed for the counter-attack this devilishly sneaky enemy was
obviously planning, and swung a mighty swing, whacking the spider a mighty
blow.
It turned out that Goliath,
the mighty terrorist spider, was Goli-ette, the mommy-to-be spider-ess! And it seems (I found out) that when you
apply the mighty whack of a broom to a very pregnant spider, hundreds (perhaps
billions) of tiny little baby spiders get launched everywhere!
Our white carpet now had a
hairy brown-black spot of spider innards, and two square yards of moving black
dots. It seemed like they were storming
the walls; they were all over my broom weapon.
Carrie was now jumping up and down, certain that at least two or three
hundred of the little monsters were crawling up her legs.
It took a long time to clean
up both the hairy brown-black mush...and collect all the offspring, not to
mention calming-down my offspring!
Eventually, with four cans of insect spray, cleaners and much resolve,
we restored order and some semblance of dignity to the Baptist parsonage.
Spider Lessons
In retrospect, I learned
three valuable lessons about “spider encounters”. One lesson was personal; the second was
political and the third spiritual.
· The personal lesson is
that my girls were never going to get along with spiders and snakes. So, the next time I face one of these
Godzillas I will ditch the broom in favor of a clear drinking glass to capture,
and release...into the toilet!
· The political lesson
was that the spider is a picture of terrorists.
Just when you think you've smashed the big problem, many little problems
spring into action.
· And the third spiritual
application of this little picture of loose spiders everywhere is the case of
evil. It may be a habit, one impure
thought, or a lie or bit of juicy gossip – but so much trouble can spring from
it!
For You Today
A bit of advice from a
spider war veteran: we all need to recognize
the real spiders that want to consume our faith and discipleship, and make
certain we don’t become one!
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