On cleaning up cobwebs

I used to always think, “Wow! What an amazing coincidence!” when the pastor’s Sunday morning message corresponded with a devotional I’d read that very day, or when a topic I was reading about for a weekday Bible study class ended up being discussed in our Sunday morning small group... and then I wondered, why am I surprised by this? God’s Word encompasses and is applicable to every area of our life, no matter the topic; His Word is never contradictory; and much of His divine plan for our lives and wisdom for living is repeated over and over again (just in case we missed it the first time, which we usually do) throughout the Bible, in various passages, books, subtexts, and parables.

Yet, I still get tickled when I read a blog and it just happens to coincide with the passage of Scripture I’m studying, which is exactly what happened (again!) this weekend. My friend, and worship leader (er, I mean, lead worshipper) at our church, wrote about the evidence of self-examination. If we claim to have examined our way of living, and profess to be making a change… well, we might convince some folks just by our self-proclamation, but those closest to us will know the truth, for they either will or will not see the evidence of the change.

Our Sunday morning small group has been studying the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. These books not only provide a fascinating history lesson, but are also rich with application for right living (specifically, how to overcome fear and obstacles in our quest for obedience).

After some fits and starts in their attempts to rebuild the city walls, Nehemiah comes in, gets them organized, and, under his strong leadership, they rebuild the wall in 52 days (which they’d been working on for some 70 years at this point!).Upon its completion, Ezra the scribe reads from the law, and the people have an incredible revival – a six-hour worship service that culminates in one of the greatest prayers in history (see Nehemiah 9). They are so moved, so convicted, so determined to live right, that in Nehemiah 10 we read that they signed a covenant, promising to keep God’s commandments.

As I prepared to help lead the discussion on this, I turned to Warren Wiersbe’s most excellent commentary, Be Determined. He opens his discussion on Nehemiah 10 with the following story:

In a certain church, there was a man who always ended his prayers with, “And, Lord, clean the cobwebs out of my life! Clean the cobwebs out of my life!”

One of the members of the church became weary of hearing this same insincere request week after week, because he saw no change in the petitioner’s life. So, the next time he heard the man pray, “Lord, clean the cobwebs out of my life!” he interrupted with, “And while you’re at it, Lord, kill the spider!”

When I read that, and then read my friend’s post on self-examination, I thought, “How true this is for us!” We take a look at the superficial messes in our life, those pesky cobwebs, and ask God to clean them up, all the while ignoring the true source of the problem – the spider!

When we pray for God to help us tidy up the messes in our life, are we serious about making the changes necessary to keep it clean? So often we try to keep that spider as a pet. We wipe away the cobwebs and try to destroy the evidence of the spider, but can’t quite seem to bring ourselves to remove the spider itself.

As my friend points out, some people will think we’ve exterminated the spider. We get ourselves ready for our guests by cleaning the cobwebs out of the corners and off the chandeliers, and they come in and think, “Wow! You really have it all together!”

But our family, the ones who spend the most time with us, who live with us day after day… they know that the cobwebs keep coming back. They know the truth.

So, as I thought about that, I wondered about my own sticky webs of deceit I’ve been spinning… the ideas that the spiders I have hanging around aren’t all that bad, not really a problem, only occasionally bite me and leave their venom coursing through my veins…

Hmmmm, on the other hand, maybe it’s time to finally call in the Orkin man.

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These spider pictures were taken in our backyard, around our AC unit. This friendly little orb weaver had made quite a home for herself and her two huge egg sacs, right under my oldest son's window. He's no pansy, but the thought of hundreds of little spiders hatching and possibly crawling into his room was more than he could handle.