At War with the Spiders

Funny things, spider's webs. Small kingdoms in dark corners. Nearly invisible for a time, you usually can't even see them until they've captured a prey, stuck to the silky threads, seemingly defying gravity as it dangles in space. There's not much proactive hunting that goes on in the life of a spider that way. It's more of a "wait for it to come to me" mentality. Yet, the whole time it waits, it's working. Spinning. Building its kingdom strand by strand.

But it's not a strong kingdom. It will fail with a strong burst of wind or the intrusion of a larger object.

Lately, in my house, the spiders have been winning. With all the hot weather, and while we were out of town, several arachnids moved in and set up shop. I keep finding them under cabinets, tangled in light fixtures, tucked in tiny places even my vacuum can't reach.

I can't help but think I let that happen in my own life, sometimes. While I'm checked out doing life, focusing on my other "rat-killing" as my Dad calls it, the spiders creep in, and in the dark places of my mind and heart, begin to catch joy and distort it. They take areas of my discontent and turn them into jealousy. They catch my struggle with a relationship, and that struggle remains stuck in limbo, neither healing nor breaking. Instead, it is simply consumed and thereby destroyed.

It's in those moments, when the spiders are winning, I must cry out to the One who can clean out those dark corners with the light of his Truth; the power of his hand, wiping away the fragile cobwebs of Satan's lies. It might take a while for it all to get cleaned up, but it will be well worth the result.

But if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us... 1 John 1:7