I had a very unpleasant encounter this morning...with a HUGE spider! I really do mean...HUGE! I had gone out to the back porch to fix the covers on the bed and when I flipped the quilt...there it was! Of course, it was probably as equally shocked to see me as I was it because it quickly sought to regain a secure hiding spot.
To say that I jumped would be an understatement! I ran in to get something to try and spray it with and a fly swatter to have something longer than my arm in order to search for it with! I did manage to spy it again twice, but I am sad to say that it is currently winning in our little competition to annihilate it from this life!
The bed is stripped and taken apart, the sheets are being washed...and the spider is nowhere to be found! Ugh! There was a hole in the boxspring we discovered when we tilted it so we have sprayed bug spray in there and taped it up!
I share all this not for the sole purpose of letting you know how I got my adrenaline rush this morning, but rather to let you know how God can use even spiders to speak His truth to our hearts. I would personally like it if He chose another means of communication, but it has been effective, I'll give Him that!
You see, my encounter has left me feeling creepy, skin-crawling, jumpy at the littlest thing and imagining a potential spider threat around every corner! I was making my bed...very cautiously...when I heard this...
2 Cor. 10:5 (MsgB)
We use our powerful God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ.
Another version calls them vain imaginations! That verse sucker-punched me because I realized how wildly I had let my imagination run! The spider was outside...somewhere...on the other side of a closed door, but I had imagined all its family members lurking behind every fold of a sheet and stack of pillows!
And it hit me, I do that with SO many things. I know what the truth says, but I had already forgotten my study in Me, Myself and Lies this morning and had allowed my mind to run, unfettered, until I had worked myself into a tizzy.
So I am choosing to reign my mind in, dwell on the truth...and hope that spider is tucked safely away behind the tape, inhaling poison fumes! ;O)
Lord, this is my prayer ~
Psalm 119:97 (MsgB)
Oh, how I love all you've revealed;
I reverently ponder it all the day long.
May I choose to ponder Your TRUTH as I go about my day and not allow my mind to get caught up in vain imaginings that lead to nothing but fear!
P.S. Would you also be so kind, Lord, as to show us a dead spider before the day is done! ;O)
That's so funny, Barb. Jada told me as we were leaving for school yesterday morning that she thinks there's a tarantula living on our roof. She said "Daddy needs to kill it before it has three babies and they kill us!" She was so serious too! Thanks for sharing those verses. What great truth! :)
ReplyDeletePoor baby! I feel for her!! XOXO
ReplyDeleteIronic. We have a "Charlotte's" web outside our kitchen window. Today the kids and I discovered the spider that created it -- a large wolf spider. Of course, they thought it was cool. I'm just glad it's on the OUTSIDE of the window!
ReplyDeleteYes, Lord, show Barb a dead spider so she can continue to enjoy that beautiful, restful place she set up on the porch.
ReplyDeleteP.S. Lord, I'm not praying this selfishly either even though I hope that one day I can visit her and sit on that porch too.