Spiders!

Apologies to those who like arachnids. (Anybody?)

Nearly every night, at least one very large spider is found lurking in our shower. I resist the urge to squash or hoover, and call Don to pick up and eject out the window. The window is rarely open. It’s a mystery how these guys get in night after night, unless they somehow dive through the stagnant water in the U-bend in order to reach what they may think of as Nirvana, only to find themselves turfed back outside into the cotoneaster. (Although I’m sure some of them succeed in slipping from shower to bedroom and who knows where else!)

I’m trying an experiment today. I’ve covered the drain, so we’ll see if any of my 8-legged friends revisits the shower. It isn’t that I grudge spiders space in the shower: it’s the potential of them moving into my clothes or bed which compels me to throw them out where they belong.

Paul wrote that God transforms our minds so that we can have the mind of Christ. I fall so far short of that goal, struggling with the same old bad thought patterns. Every so often, I sense I may have made some progress, only to have an unhelpful thought swim through the murk and take over my thinking yet again.

I’m covering the drain in my brain, again today: covering it with the blood of Jesus, covering it with the power of Scripture, covering it with the indwelling Holy Spirit, and every time I see a wee leg of nastiness trying to squeeze back into my brain, I think I may be justified in just SQUASHING it. (In spirit, of course.)

Because once that nastiness moves in and settles down, it has a way of derailing the mind of Christ in me and skewing all my thought processes. So grateful that in Jesus we are always given another chance, and in him we always have the victory.

Spiders!

When I see a huge spider lurking in the bathtub, I wonder what God was thinking of when he created such a thing. 

But on a damp, low-cloudy morning like today I can see a redeeming feature. As I walked round behind the neighbour’s home I marvelled at the lace doilies picked out in dew drops as they stretched between branches and twigs of gorse and honeysuckle. 

There is something so fragile and dainty about these structures, and yet I know that the silk the spiders spin is pretty heavy-duty. Normally these webs hang hidden, effective traps for hapless flying victims. Perhaps on mornings like this the spiders have to fast as insects perceive the danger and avoid the trap.

How easy it is for us to get drawn into situations which look attractive perhaps – as the webs do this morning. Equally, how easy it is to fall prey to hidden traps and not recognise what’s happened until we are struggling to be set free.

I’m thinking of addictions as well as sins. Things which we choose to become involved in as well as things which catch us unaware. Sometimes we can feel trussed up and waiting helplessly for some evil monster to devour us.

As Paul writes to the Galatians, though, it was for freedom that Christ has set us free. Jesus wants us to live lives free from addictions and free from fear. He wants to transform our minds so that we see his goodness and recognise that all that he offers is wonderful, offered in love and with no strings attached. 

He is not a spider lurking in the leaves, waiting for his next victim. He is the one who has already untangled any web we might construct or get caught in, and is just waiting for us to ask him to lift us out. 

Some entanglements are broken quickly and some resist for years but God’s main aim is to set us all free. That’s why Jesus came.

And as for spiders – keep outside of my house, where you can live out your destiny in freedom...