Loathsome cobwebs

Walking downstairs the other day I focused on the old Grandfather clock at the bottom. I walk by it every day but – maybe because it doesn’t work – I never look at it. But I did a few days ago and saw something which looked like a loathsome amoeba creeping through the carved mahogany curlie-cues above the clock face. Don came in response to my cry of horror and said quite calmly that it was just a cobweb. 

Well I usually know a cobweb when I see one. It hangs down from the ceiling or the light fitting and waves about in the air. But this was something else. It looked almost like a Scottish tam o’shanter hat, draped lazily over the edge of the curved surface. 

How long did it take to acquire such dimensions? How many times had I walked past and never noticed? How many guests had noticed it with horror and thought I was a terrible housekeeper? 

Bad habits, unhealthy ways of thinking, grudges, critical attitudes – all those negative things begin as cobwebs in our psyches and, if not knocked down and cleaned out, develop over time into loathsome things which smother healthy thought and skew creative and right thinking. 

We can become so accustomed to the furniture of our minds that we don’t always notice when these creepy things are gaining a foothold. Hence it is so important to regularly examine our thoughts by the light of Scripture and prayer. 

Paul wrote to the people in Philippi that they should guard their thinking: ‘summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious – the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.’ (The Message)

A great antidote to loathsome mental cobwebs.